like many people, i remember where i was when i was told of the attacks on 9/11. i remember the look on my husband's face as he told me--a look of disbelief and fear. i remember my first reaction. "no." denial. couldn't be happening to us. this was america. the world loved us. the superpower. the light of good. the light of strength. the light of freedom.
that morning marked the beginning of what i call my awakening. an awakening that has been wrought with rage, confusion, grief and the most intense sensation of feeling utterly overwhelmed. on 9/10 i was living an illusion, inside of a (supposedly) safe little bubble. 24 hours later, i was questioning everything i had been told about our government, our place in the world, our values, our culture. let me tell you.....when i say i have moments in which i wish to god i could crawl back inside that bubble, i ain't kidding! it is so very parallel to the scenes in the matrix when neo is first awakening to the truth of his existance. awakening is messy and will try both your mental your emotional sanity.
it's easy to remain wrapped up in the anger: anger either felt at our government or in the religious terrorists. or both, depending upon what you believe to be true about the events of that day. however, when we remain wrapped up in that anger, it is easy to forget about the thousands of people who died oh so unecessarily on that day.
so maybe today, just for today, we can focus on the lives lost instead of our anger. we can pause and reflect on those lives, how they were a part of our world. their families and friends left behind. we can reflect on how so many of us stopped our outside lives and instead focused inward. we slowed waaaaay down and remembered our common connection. not to sound cliche, but we remembered how precious, how truly precious, life is. we remembered what is important--truly important--more than ANYTHING ELSE--and that is our relationships with one another.
peace is actually very simple. all we need to do is remember who we really are and then live that consciously, moment by moment. and maybe one day, i (and others) won't need some individual or global tragic disaster in order to do so.
1 comment:
Nice post. I especially like the line "awakening is messy and will try both your mental and emotional sanity." So true. And probably one of the reasons why so many people are choosing not to awaken. Sadly, most people seem to require personal or global disaster to coax them out of their slumber. Will we all awaken before it's too late?
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