I remember

That morning is still clear in my memory. Our oldest son delivered to Everett, and the youngest to Gardner. Stealing a few quiet moments with Marcia before getting to work late. Looking up to an amazingly clear blue sky and thinking, ‘Wow!’

An uneventful bike ride to work, and sitting in my office with the door closed after changing into work clothes from bike clothes. Making the rounds of checking email, equipment and servers, catching snippets of news as I passed through control rooms. Two planes crashed into the World Trade Center, not much is known as yet. ‘That doesn’t seem even possible,’ my internal thoughts. Walking to the front office to get the morning mail, Cindy snags me and says, ‘The towers fell.’ There, in her office, on a small TV was an image of a dust cloud over Manhattan, and then a replay of the second plane to crash into the towers.

I went back to my office stunned. I sent a brief email to my friend, Jim, who lives in Brooklyn but works in studios in Manhattan, ‘I hope you’re okay.’ A few minutes later, ‘I’m fine, still at home. What do we do?’ ‘Give blood,’ was my reply. I don’t know what I did the rest of the day other than keeping to myself. Probably had lunch with Marcia, probably did little things in my office, perhaps a visit to the transmitters, all these things a way to avoid interacting with others and experiencing their grief on top of my own.

I remember very clearly riding my bike up the driveway and seeing the vivid blue sky, unmarked by contrails. The unusual quiet, much like a campus building during a power failure, caused by the ‘ground stop’ of all aircraft. It was like a sanctuary. Because it was and is a sanctuary.

In the early days that followed, the world responding, ‘We are all Americans.’ The gentleness that I felt from store clerks to close friends: ‘I’m glad you are here, because we now know how quickly life can change,’ the unspoken thoughts.

The days that followed were of rescue and recovery. I was seeing a spiritual healer because I was still reeling and coping with my brain aneurysm a year previous, and a cancer diagnosis just five months before 9/11. I remember thinking that I was that person that got up especially early, making the coffee in the pre-dawn darkness. Sitting quietly, with a freshly-brewed cup of coffee, watching the sky slowly lighten, waiting for the rest of the family to awaken. As each person woke up, and saw how incredibly fragile our lives are, deeply caring for the person they just met, the world was changed.

It takes a special kind of courage to live in that thin place. It is painful. If ‘getting stuff done’ is your thing, you simply cannot stay there. When you’re sensitive like myself, the feelings are overwhelming.

In minutes, lives were snuffed out. And almost as quickly, the care and concern we all shared was snuffed out in favor of revenge and retaliation. It’s been said that only five percent of Americans were opposed to going to war to avenge the terrorist attacks (I think my circle of friends were all in the five percent). We knew that there was no winning a war on terror, except by putting our swords back in their place. We had the example of a man that knew this saying, ‘…all that take up the sword will perish by the sword.’ They said we had to project force, that that was all ‘they’ would understand. Forgetting that wisdom is in not reacting, but by staying calm. Only one. Only one member of Congress had the courage to stand up to the drumbeat of war: Representative Barbara Lee of the 9th district of California (now the 13th district).

She made a choice. We all made choices in the days following 9/11 to care for those close to us, and the strangers in our midst. It was our choice. The drumbeats of fear and retaliation are so loud. We as a country have chosen to march to that beat. Individually, we can choose differently. Being peaceful, caring and loving will not make it on TV or on Facebook. But it’s the most courageous thing we can do.

Julian of Norwich, 14th century mystic, had amazing confidence. In the midst of plague, she said: “All shall be well, and all shall be well, and all manner of thing shall be well.” Collectively, the world in which all of the people we love, and everything we love, is in the midst of a plague of fear, we can choose to be courageous bringers of peace and love. (I have to keep reciting Julian’s words because it’s far too easy for me to see how unwell things are, and not the truth that all shall be well).