Has it really been ten years already?

(Note: If you're interested in my thoughts as recorded on and in the days shortly following September 11, 2001, and two years later, check an old post here. If I recall, it was going to have a lot of thoughts from that time, around the 8th anniversary of the terrorist attacks, but the post got lost or something and I didn't want to re-write it all. So there's a bit of a gap here, but for today, I'll just stick to today. Mostly, anyway. I can't really. That isn't the point.)

Ten years ago, I was 17 years old, just off to college for the first time. Then one Tuesday I stopped into my dorm room between my two morning classes-- which were both in the same building as the dorm-- and as I got a snack or made tea or grabbed my other books or whatever I tended to do in the short break between classes-- my suitemate Abby came in through the shared bathroom. She asked me if I'd heard.

Now, there could have been a million ways that story ended. A million forgettable ways, even. Even accounting for the stricken look on her face. Her roommate could have broken both legs, or there might have been a terrible car crash on campus, or there could be a tornado headed straight toward campus about to carry us all off straight to Oz. There were myriad ways for that conversation to go that would have been a blip-- or even a notable, but somewhat less world-shifting event-- in my day. But I had no way to expect or prepare for what was coming instead.

Because the conversation didn't go any of those ways. Instead she told me the country was under terrorist attack and there were people flying airplanes into buildings and no-one-knew-how-many more were hijacked somewhere, and so I followed her into her room and we watched as a skyscraper fell down to the ground.

And everything changed.

I was trying to reflect back, today, on what things were like before that day. It's so hard, now, with the things we take for granted-- just take the stuff we put up with at the airport, for example. I remember when you could go up to the actual gate to greet arriving passengers. And it was no big thing. Now you have to take off your shoes and maybe get felt up or maybe get x-ray-vision-ed or maybe get air puffed on you and you can't bring your shampoo. It's joked about, but it's also sort of taken for granted that homeland security might very likely be watching your library card records or your online purchases or who you associate with. Especially if you (or they) are the wrong color or have the wrong accent or the wrong religion or the wrong descent.

Were people less afraid then? Were we less suspicious? Yeah. I think so. I wish I could time travel back to that year, before all this went down, and observe. How were we different? Were we less defensive, a little more open? Or were we all just going around blissfully unaware of what was important in life?

This morning I ran in a 5k benefitting an organization here in the metro area that provides counseling services for veterans and troops with PTSD and other mental health issues (and for their families as well). Prior to the runs getting started, there was an early-morning remembrance ceremony. There was a lot of the expected-- servicemembers and public safety personnel in attendance, city councilmen thanking everyone, someone read some poems about being a soldier, etc. There were flags. "Amazing Grace" was played on a bagpipe. There was some marching involved. A choir of children sang some deplorably cheesy patriotic songs. There was a video with images and sounds from that day and the time after, which was good. It was a relatively small gathering-- just those who were participating in or volunteering with the race in some way, and even then I don't think all of the 8am walkers and runners made it out that early.

And two things struck me about the choir of kids. One was as they sang "I'm proud to be an American" (or whatever the name of the song actually is), I realized that they were all Hispanic children, and wondered how many of them were first, or second, or third generation Americans, and what that might mean to them or their families, as gag-reflex-inducing and questionably accurate as that particular song might normally be.

But before they got up on stage to sing that song, and another uber-cheesy one aimed at overseas troops (poor troops, why can't someone write them a decent song already??) when I saw them milling about with some teachers off to the side, all in their school uniforms, I thought about how it was good that they were there. I'd been looking at them, and they appeared to be 8, 9, 10 maybe some of the taller ones a little bit older. And I realized that they were, for the most part, born into a post-September 11th world. Maybe a couple of the older ones think they remember that day, from having seen so many video clips and pictures, heard so many stories. But they don't really. They have no memories of the time before, before it all changed. They have never known any different than this.

And I wanted to go over to them, crouch down and put my hands on their shoulders, look them in the eyes and say "I'm sorry. I am sorry that you didn't ever get to be here for the days when you could greet someone at the airport gate and when everyone wasn't so suspicious just all of the time and that you have grown up your whole life knowing what terrorism is, and that we did not do better at this, at making this world a better place for you to be." (I did not. First of all, because it was the middle of a ceremony and other things were going on. Second of all, because even if the children didn't find it weird, their teachers and parents might have. I think you can only get away with doing things like that, and people letting you, once you are really old.)

Everything changed. These children, and my nieces and nephew, and any children I might ever have, and everyone to come will be born into a world where as infants, their bottle is suspect if their parents try to board a flight with them and as children, they can get kicked out of school for so much as mentioning a bomb and as teenagers, they'll get flagged on someone's watch list when they check out the anarchist and communist or even just Muslim websites or books as they're trying to figure out who they are and rebel against all the messed-up stuff in the world and as adults, they'll be afraid, and some of them will hate and that hate will poison them, and their own children after them.

Unless everything changes again.

Unless we refuse to be suspicious of every person we see on the street, refuse to buy into adrenaline-fueled hype and cheesy patriotic songs aimed to get us revved up to buy whatever anyone tells us equates to allegiance to and love for our country, refuse to seek an eye for eye while claiming to have God on our side in that quest, refuse to let fear and hatred get in the way of our work and our love and our best attempts to make the world just a little bit better than it was before we got here.

It won't be as sudden or as news-clip, sound-bite-worthy as a plane smashing into a building or a field. But it can be more powerful, more earth-shifting yet. And as Christians, if we are not leading that change, then shame on us.

That is all. :)