fear… grief… anger… 

 

Unless you have been living in a cave, you know the 10 year anniversary of 9/11 is this weekend.  With it has come a floodtide of television specials, newspaper articles, radio commentary, chain emails, and Facebook statuses all reminding us that for a brief moment almost all of us were filled with a storm of those 3 emotions. Yes, we felt them in varying degrees of magnitude, but we were indivisible in our shared emotions.

 

Then the moment faded and so did our unity. The discussions about what to do next began.  Who do we blame? How do we respond? Do we isolate ourselves or do we keep charging back out in the world?  Who should we attack? Who is on our side?  What do we do to someone not on our side? 

 

Those questions started the bickering.  Capitalistic people from all walks in life used our nation’s fluctuating emotions to graduate those questions into even darker questions.  Who should we hate?  Who do we punish?  What other enemies do we have? Who should we be terrified of?  What will we pay to not be afraid?  What will we sacrifice? 

 

The bickering turned into fighting, both literally and figuratively.  Fighting on the battlefield, on Capitol Hill, at the alter, on Wall Street, and on Main Street.  If you believe what you hear and read, we have spent the last 10 years spiraling into darkness… and we did it waiting shoeless in the airport security line.

 

The military/political/financial/media arena has been consumed with the word response.  We must respond to this action with a deliberate, planned action.  A response means you took the time to double-think your emotions, take advice from others based on both their emotions and fact, argue about your decision, and finally execute your plan.  Unfortunately, a lot of our responses to 9/11 didn’t go quite as well as we hoped and left many with even more fear, grief, and anger.

 

In my humble opinion, the root of the problem is the word “respond”.  Long ago, a very intelligent man said “for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction.”  A lot of time and money was spent planning a response to 9/11, in fact we are still “responding” to 9/11.  However, the reactions were almost instantaneous.  The reactions happened without strategic planning, they were an impulse… a reflex.  The reactions could be controlled no more than you can stop your leg from springing up into the air when the doctor hits your knee cap.

 

While the powers that be were responding to 9/11, we plain people were reacting to it…. and that is where the light began…. with our equal and opposite reactions.

 

Almost 10 years ago, about 2 hours after a 757 plowed into the Pentagon in D.C., a phone call came into a small manufacturing plant in Lynchburg, Virginia sparking a whirlwind which would change my life forever.  That phone call spurned 1,000 other phone calls.  One of those phone calls I would place to an exceptionally stubborn man who infuriated me.  A few days later, I would meet that man in person and I would infuriate him.  A year and a half later, this man and I would fly to Las Vegas in the middle of a blizzard, two days before my 27th birthday, and exchange vows before a small group of family and friends.  8 years later, this very morning, I signed “I love you” to a smiling boy, who looks just like this man, and his twin sister as they trotted up the school bus steps on their way to kindergarten. 

 

The phone call my plant received was a reaction to 9/11.  The phone call I made was a reaction to that first phone call.  If I had never made that first phone call, I wouldn’t be waiting on a bus at the end of a driveway leading to the only house that has ever felt like home.  I wouldn’t have moved to a town which taught me the meaning of community.  I wouldn’t know strangers can become family and family can become something even better.  I wouldn’t have discovered the value of friendship.  I wouldn’t now have proof that there are good men and they are all superheroes.  None of this would’ve happened if I hadn’t made that phone call and I wouldn’t have made that phone call had those planes never struck the Twin Towers, the Pentagon, and the Pennsylvania countryside.  Before 9/11 I was flippant about life, rather insensitive, and had decided I was better off on my own.  After 9/11, I know better and cherish my life.  It was my equal and opposite reaction.

 

It isn’t just me.  My friend, one of the best people I know, jumped in a car and drove hours to be with a man whom she had only previously known as a boyfriend but within hours of the attack solidified his place in her heart as her partner in life.  She, like me, will be waiting at the bus stop this afternoon for her own kindergartner, the end result of her drive that day which was sparked by those lives lost.  How many thousands of other people made that same drive with the same result?  Another friend quit his unfulfilling job and before the last fires were extinguished he enrolled in med school, now he works in an ER treating those enduring the most traumatic moments in their lives.  How many thousands of others now contribute to society in a way that they had never done before?  Each of my friends reacted to the fear and anger with the opposite reaction of hope and love. 

 

Across the nation, millions of others found their hearts and lives radically changed that day, because that day caused them to have an equal and opposite reaction.  People found love, people found faith, relationships blossomed, marriages were saved, children were born, people decided to take chances, and people decided to be more.  In New York alone, 36,000 people donated blood for the first time saving both the lives of 9/11 survivors and others who were victims of non-related tragedies.   40% more people dedicated themselves to the Peace Corps, and all the good the organization brings to the world.  Arguments continued, but people who had been silent for years were finally inspired to speak up.  The economy collapsed, but it taught us to treasure the simpler things we already have.  Even in a war that has almost torn us apart, there have been moments of hope and enlightenment which would not have been achieved otherwise.  

 

Yes, there was darkness- there always is- but also light.  For many, this light would have never happened if not for someone’s equal and opposite reaction to the horror of 9/11.  It is not that our happiness was worth the lives lost, but we woke up on 9/12 in a debt that we never asked for.  It was up to us to decide what 2,819 souls are worth.  Some people reacted by paying it back with darkness and their debt continues to grow.  But millions of others, on both sides of the aisle, reacted with light.  They can never pay back the debt, but their light can turn grief into honor.  Those who had an equal and opposite reaction to 9/11 honor the lives to which they are in debt.

 

They say it always darkest right before the dawn.  In my life, it had been dark for hours and 9/11 was a moonless 3am…  as close to dawn as you can get and followed by a glorious sunrise.  The only power in this world greater than dark is its opposite, light.  I am one of those foolish people who believe light can punch a hole through the dark, which is why I am moved when I see pictures of the very appropriate World Trade Center memorial floodlights peircing the night sky.

 

This weekend as you watch the 9/11 specials on television and you see Facebook posts reminding you or your emotions that day, I encourage you to notice how equal and opposite reactions changed your life.  Even in the smallest ways, we all experienced it.  Fear, grief, and anger were turned into courage, remembrance, and hope… and continue to honor the fallen with light.