‘Be the change you wish to see in the world.” Could this be the voice that is being channeled to us by those whose lives were taken on 9/11? Theirs are the only voices that have a right to be heard in the great controversy surrounding the establishment of a Moslem cultural center/mosque close to ground zero.
We have already heard enough of the sound and fury, posturing and politicizing on this, a planet-wide life-or-death time in our history.
We must listen to those thousands on the ground and in the air who saw at their moment of detachment of body and the freeing of their spirit, the ultimate truths. They knew that their lives were taken in that eruption of extreme fear that had as its manifestations rage and vengeance. It came in the guise of al-Qaeda, yet this same extreme force had visited upon this planet many times, wearing other names and causing other “hallowed ground” designations in other times and in other nations.
Might not the mosque and cultural center provide the seminal event with the power to begin a movement toward changing the world? If it sounds like an ambitious mission, we can be encouraged by knowing that all great changes sprang from a seed.
The magnitude of 9/11 seems too awesome to have a simple answer. But that answer may be in plain sight …
Love with all your heart! Love with all your soul!
Bernice Roberts
Middletown