Reflections on 9-11

Reflections on 9-11

I was in a cabin on the edge of the Three Sisters Wilderness when I heard the news. We did not have electricity, except for what we generated from running water and falling light. The cell phones did not reach here, and there was no landline. I had turned on the radio to listen to a classical music station broadcast from the University of Oregon in Eugene. At first, I couldn’t make sense of the strange words coming with the familiar voice. The WTC had been attacked. The radio host usually spoke with a sophisticated accent that personalized calm and demeanor. She became an unsuspecting character in an unfolding drama and had no chance to rehearse, having been put on the spot to narrate the horrible events we all were witnessing. I had a 6-inch battery TV and was spared those same scenes on a big screen. It was almost more than the imagination could take. I felt like the wind had been knocked out of me. Stunned, dazed, confused, I was so far away from the action; there was nothing I could do.
I suppose every one sensed the ‘outhouse’ would soon be
hitting the fan. I knew we would be going to war. I also felt
sadness or regret that we had not created a more peaceful world.
I felt, also that in a spiritual sense the attack was somehow my fault.
I had certainly not been as good a person as I could have been.
Maybe if I had not cut my hair (I had worn dreadlocks as a sign
of the peaceful diet, taken a Nazarite vow and broken it) or not betrayed my heart at times, maybe if I had been little more passionate or a lot more compassionate, I would have altered the course of events, not so much by converting the heathen or enlightening the self righteous, or by appeasing an angry god, but by balancing karma and magnifying
the light, in other words by always being truthful. Call me crazy or obsessed with a Christ complex, but I feel the cosmic connection between what I do and what happens on the global scale. We are the world, and I have pride and prejudice in my heart. If I harbor violence or hatred, how much hope is there? I know my well meaning friends will say Jesus is the answer. Jesus had the answer, ‘love your neighbor as yourself’, but Jesus is not coming again like Dr. Strangelove on the wings of a bomb.
I felt helpless and useless. I didn’t go to work. It was only a planning day anyway. I decided to climb a mountain called Indian Chief peak that towered over the elk friendly valley along Horse Creek. It was a rock outcropping that featured a prominent profile. I had wanted to climb this Mt., and this seemed the perfect opportunity to deal with my angst. After bushwhacking through brush and vines ands briars to get to the steep cliffs, I was sweaty and cut and ready to climb. A few trees clung here and there to the sheer terrain. Soil gave way to gravity. I initiated a few small landslides and received a dose of falling debris in my eye. This was the type of climbing where I could pull myself up by roots and rocks without a rope, being ever cautious that the root or rock I grab could give way. After a few hours of struggle, mixed with alertness and concern, I reached the outcropping. The last few yards to the top involved a perilous shimmy along a precipitous rocky ridge. I crawled, clinging like a snake, inching my way to the summit. Mountains and blue sky stretched as far as the eye could see. No planes were flying that afternoon.
I left an offering at the top, token recompense for my complicity in terrorism as beneficiary of the military industrial complex. My very clothes reeked with injustice, the sweat of wage slaves in another land, a stench to any god of justice. Being born American gave meaning to original sin. We had become like Rome, a military empire. Not to besmirch the salt of the earth, most people are honest and hard working, but corporations are not people. Collectively and at a distance, we do what we would never do on a personal basis. Corporations pollute and exploit for the profit of a few. For the most part, Americans are as out of touch with where their taxes go or what their investments do, as they are about where their clothes come from. There is a need to question whether our foreign policy has set the stage for terrorism? We are resolute that our presidents profess an irrational faith. Even though this requirement is unspoken, it should be unthinkable to insist our leader feigns allegiance to some ‘higher power’. Only fear demands that we want a ‘man of god’ in the oval office. We are fighting theocracies overseas, while our own ‘mullah’ has come home to roost in the White House. We have an occupant in office, of questionable legitimacy, and whose sense of reality is informed by fundamentalism firmly rooted in fantasyland. Fine! It’s okay if these pious people want too go wait on the mountaintop for the ‘rapture’, but lets take away their nuclear toys. Armeggedon doesn’t have to be, and the sincere seekers will eventually come down from the mountaintops and join the evolution of consciousness. My guilt, our guilt has been failing to love one another as ourselves. We have the Truth, god is love, and we have the Spirit, love is god.
Coming down Indian Chief proved more difficult than going up. I had decided to come down on the opposite side than what I had come up, and it proved even more plumb. There was an abrupt ravine that started as a rock staircase and eventually caught water and became a waterfall. The walls of the canyon were like a funnel running toward the creek, and so did I. The trees were giants in this untamed forest, growing hundreds of feet high, and almost parallel to the intense slopes. The rugged trees were my anchors as I cascaded down this plummeting hillside. What had I got myself into? Was there a safe way out? Scrambling, sliding, pert’ near flying, I made my way to the bottom. I made good use of the adrenaline that been flowing since the news that morning. I had faced danger and survived. A scratch on my eye made my eyes water for about a week.
Looking back from 5 years later, I reflect on the evidence of conspiracy and am convinced the Bush administration is culpable. But W’s war is only indicative of the war that is fought in every breast. The ‘war on terrorism’ is ultimately fought by every soul wrestling with opposing proclivities in its own nature. Our leftover survival instincts play out as battles of the rich against the poor, or more aptly the greedy against the needy. It’s not east vs. west, or blue vs. grey, or brown vs. white, or this god against that god, it all boils down to love vs. fear. Love is the spirit of peace, and perfect love casts out fear. Are we afraid of dying? Would we murder to defend our faith? We are so afraid of being wrong, yet we insist on beliefs that can’t be proven. How many people have been blown up by a desire to please god? Gut knowledge tells us that most religious tenets are ridiculous, if not impossible, even with god, if god is reasonable and loving. It is honorable to lay down your life for others, but to kill for religion breaks the golden rule. Justice means equality not revenge. I have a theory that is analogous to Einstein’s E=mc2. Suppose that m(mass)= people and c(speed of light)=love. As the number of people filled with love reach critical mass, a spiritual explosion will take place and E(energy) = evolution. We take a quantum leap into peace and prosperity. Blessed are the meek for they shall inherit the earth!
As I write this I am recuperating from a broken leg I suffered while rock climbing recently. Had I fallen in 2001, because of where I was and because I was alone, I probably would have died from exposure, but I continued to live, and continued to live on the edge. Now, after this latest mishap, I feel like I have been given a second chance to ground myself, figuratively and literally. I realize I’m lucky to be alive, but luck does not guarantee safety. Hopefully I have learned to be more careful, and I pray I have learned to be more compassionate. I wonder if we, the world, will be given another chance. Will we be more careful and compassionate? Will we be courageous enough to reach beyond our intolerant tribal religions? Will we be fortunate enough to survive our reckless technologies? Is it not in our best interests to learn how to ‘love our enemies’?