10 years later

September 11, 2001, is one of those seminal events assaulting all other experiences pushing them to the bar ditches of memory.

As if what is unfolding is unfathomable enough, the swirling waves of uncertainties multiply the clouds of confusion and disorientation. Such it was for most all in the United States that morning.

Our two sons were out of the country, out of reach, out of sight, but very much in our hearts. Our need to connect and reassure ourselves that scattered as we were, we were all safe.

I am not sure we have learned all the lessons 9/11 had to teach us and not really sure we have learned any of the lessons 9/11 had to teach us.

Ten years after, a nation that should be more safe is not necessarily so. A country that should be more tolerant is certainly not so, and a country that should understand the basic tenants of living together, sharing together is absolutely not so.

This weekend has been a soul searching time for me. I watched posts on the internet and grieved that Christian people are so easily misled by the loud arrogant militant doomsayers who appeal to the worst in all of us. In the late 1970's a small, self absorbed, strident band of morally superior preachers began to push their agenda and way to the front of the political spectrum. They managed to polarize, obscure, and misdirect the energies and lives of millions of people while making the American experience more toxic and less secure. By shading the history of America, leaving out significant facts in the tapestry of the shaping of the nation, by pushing forward an entitlement that never belonged, and ignoring some of the founding father's concerns about government and religion, we are now bearing the putrid fruit of that bastard movement.

The talk is more strident, the truth more blurred, the emotions more raw, the dialogue melting into escalating debate, the positions more intractable and problems neglected become more complex because of fewer options.

I am profoundly disappointed in how easily "protecting freedom" becomes "protecting the status quo." People being what they are allow themselves to think less critically and be more easily manipulated. Freedoms hammered out under the threat of a watchful tyranny, as slowly given away, slowly modified, and slowly corrupted.

So we move past this anniversary, convinced our greatest enemies are off shore.
I am less convinced and more troubled.