It's been a while since I've posted here, and I figured that the best excuse for getting back to it was the eighth anniversary of the September 11th attacks.
So where are we right now? Does it ever strike you as interesting that the very reason some people cringe a little bit when people get emotional about that event is because it hasn't happened again in eight years?
Let me explain what I mean. To talk a lot about the importance of 9/11 seems a little bit heavy-handed these days, even to me sometimes. Just like comparing people to Hitler has lost all meaning, because people with little rhetorical skill jump to that analogy far too often and far too soon. So we're left with an event that really did shake the nation to its very center, and has still somehow lost the power to affect us very deeply. We'll think about it today, but we'll forget about it tomorrow.
And it's because we haven't seen anything like it on our soil for eight years. That's a miracle. I can assure you that the Islamic extremists do not hate us less. Nor have their efforts to kill as many of us as possible slackened. No, it's just that we've put an enormous amount of pressure on them--to the point that they haven't been able to pull off anything so large scale since.
I don't want this post to be partisan. There are things that we've done that have been effective, and things we've done that have been almost unforgivably stupid. Important, smart, and verbose people fight bitter battles over the particulars every single day of each year.
Instead, I want to talk about our morality. I believe in God. And I believe that he blesses nations according to their righteousness. I'm not talking about religion, I'm talking about human goodness. Nations that are filled with and led by people who are honestly seeking the best for each other, who are selflessly serving their fellow human beings--those nations prosper. The further we stray from that basic decency, the closer we come to being destroyed by our own inhumanity.
I don't believe God typically destroys people. I believe that when they walk far enough away from their innate sense of right and wrong, He simply lets them destroy themselves, or He stops protecting them from their enemies.
Self-destruction is something we can almost taste in this country right now. If the economy were to cease suffering and just die, then we would very quickly come to an understanding of how very bad life can be for the living. Our immorality is a sword hanging over our heads.
And so is terrorism. We've been lucky. Blessed is the term I prefer. But our safety is not a given. Mark 14:7 (in the Bible) states, "For ye have the poor with you always." The terrorists are a similar bunch in that way. There will never be a day when we lift our hands to the heavens in a celebratory gesture and declare, "They are defeated." If anyone does say those words, they are mistaken, mislead, or misleading. Terrorism is not something one nation can ever stamp out totally.
What we can do is continue to fight it, but more importantly, continue to hold onto our values. We must be a loving, honest, selfless people. If we continue on in our trend toward permissiveness, moral relativity, insatiable appetite, and utter disregard toward or open rebellion against the consequences of our actions, we will not be able to stop either sword from falling. Whichever comes first will be the only uncertainty.
I will never say that we deserved what happened on September 11th. Certainly the innocent victims of the attack did nothing to bring upon themselves a violent and untimely death. But it is absolutely incumbent upon each one of us to wake up to the realities of our world. On September 11th, we woke up. But then, as always, we fell back to that deep sleep of apathy. Each year, on this day, we have an opportunity to reawaken. This year, let's stay awake.
