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OUR World Has Changed

...a webreporter's thoughts on the attacks of terrorism in New York and Washington DC.

Editors Note: Much has already and will be written about the events of September 11th, 2001. Sometimes the writing is as much for the writer's soul as for the reader. If any parishioners would like to submit their thoughts to the webmaster for publication, they will be seen on these pages. Submit to rhollj@bitstream.net.

September 12, 2001

This morning as I looked out the kitchen window of our urban home, I saw a kestrel poised on one of our bird feeders where sparrows, a pair of cardinals and several doves usually gather. In our once peaceful back yard everything had changed. The kestrel stood alone on our feeder. Now our yard was quiet, expectant, wary.

Inside our house, as in houses all over the nation, it was the same. Just 24 hours since yesterday morning everything has changed. Images, formerly unthinkable, of fire, explosions, mighty buildings turned to rubble, screaming people, chaos, blood and death, not millions of miles away in some foreign land, but right here, at home, are seared forever into our minds. How can we ever be the same?

All day long I sat, watching, unable to tear myself away from the scenes and the stories coming at me on our TV screen. Even as I watched, I could feel the shift. Nothing would ever be the same again. This thought was almost as horrible as the pictures unfolding in front of me.

What would this do to the children, mine, theirs, and all the others? Will it make them guarded, robbed of their freedom, unable to move or be fully themselves because of this new danger that is poised, seemingly ready to devour them wherever they go?

What about their elders, all the rest of us? The horror of it all could turn us into avengers, hate robbing us of rational thought and any desire for a peaceful world. The sabers are already rattling, even though we don't know where exactly to strike.

Suddenly we have been thrown into the rest of the world. The world that we have been distanced from up till now, and so were able to advise on how they should behave under similar circumstances. "Forget what has happened in the past, get on with life, live peacefully with each other" has essentially been our message to these other nations. Now that Death is stalking us, will we have the courage to remember and act on these same words?

My hope is that we will. It won't be easy. Nothing will erase the scenes that we witnessed yesterday. For the victims and their families, the pain may never ease. Courage has many different names. Now what is called for is the courage to begin to build a world that is not dominated by fear. This won't happen if we try to stop violence with violence. Peace happens when we try to live as one, realizing that we are connected to every other person and thing alive. It is not them and us. It's all of us. Now what we have to do is act as though everyone else is as important as we are: their deepest yearnings the same as ours.

This is the shift that I long for, that I want for children and their parents all over the world. It is a shift that we can choose despite yesterday's carnage. Could it be, maybe even because of it?

Jo Youngren and her husband,Dave, have been members at SJA for a little over a year now. However, about 20 years ago Jo was a member and worked with Harvey Egan and Cy Speltz for 4 years. Her first husband, Jack Welch, was buried from there, and later Jo and Dave were married in what is now The Itaska, but at the time was a warehouse with a large gathering of SJA folks attending and Fred & Anna supplying the music - the church in a slightly different setting at the time giving us their blessing. Jo and Dave have been married for 19 years and back in Minnesota for the last 13.

I look out my kitchen window again. The kestrel is gone now. A few brave sparrows have returned to the feeders. Their world has shifted, but their lives go on.