If you saw the smoke, if you knew people who were killed, or knew people who helped respond and paid with their health or their life — or are one of those people, or if you knew people who were just nearby and in harm’s way for a time, then 9/11 it feels personal. So many people own this tragedy in New York and New Jersey and Washington DC and Boston — that it feels collectively like it belongs to all of us.
We walk our children and grandchildren who cannot remember through the timeline outlined on the sidewalk, adding bits of our own story to that of those most impacted. They stop to touch the twisted iron beam in the eagle’s talons….and ask again “Is it real?” Yes, unfortunately it is real. The view from the overlook behind the eagle is of the Freedom Tower now. The city seems recovered, though individual people still struggle.
It is a whole different level of experience to be thousands of miles away in Arizona and see the time and thought put into the Healing Field. There is a sea of flags covering the park, one for each person killed. But each flag is a story — a card, sometimes a pair of boots. A card commemorating a man that spent time on the bay below where the eagle memorial sits… Lt. Kevin Pfeifer. Suddenly like never before it feels like we really are in the same nation and the thousands of miles don’t mean a thing.
Are we under God, even if some are atheists? What unites us is not just government. There are too many protestors conscientiously asking for change right here at the Healing Field for that. Government is never perfect, and while a needed authority, it is not the final authority and is not unchanging. Are we under the majority’s conscience? No, we’ve too many valued protections for minorities to believe that. Is what unites us a constitution? That is the constitution founded on the notion that a creator named God endowed us with rights — whether we choose to remember his existence or not.
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