After my walk this pre-dawn morning, I sat out by the fishpond
enveloped by blissful darkness. It was the total darkness of the woods
where everything disappears. Nevertheless, the darkness mysteriously
soothes. Being sightless, sounds seem to multiply and heighten. They
enhance the dark. Undistracted mental images sharpen.
It is Rosh Hashonah. I didn't have to make the transition I
normally make from my head to my heart. I was already inside myself. I
had gone there a week ago in response to the horrible events in
Pennsylvania, New York, and Washington. As I sat in synagogue these past
two days, I realized that Rosh Hasonah, the Jewish New Year, comes with a
great gift: the opportunity to begin again. And in a perverse way,
because of the terrorists, we Americans have been given the gift to open a
new page and it is up to us to decide what the pen of life will record.
I and my family have just returned from a grueling zig-zag trip up
the east coast to Boston in order to attend the wedding of our nephew. We
had tickets to fly on Friday, didn't think we would make it, changed them
to Saturday, didn't think we would make it, changed them from
Jacksonville-Boston to Atlanta-Providence, left Valdosta at midnight,
drove almost fours hours to Atlanta, thought we had made it, waited in the
empty airport, found our flights were cancelled, didn't think we were
going to make it, got new flights, we and bags were thoroughly searched,
passed uniformed and armed air marshals, flew, drove from Providence to
Boston, made it, arrived three hours before the wedding--fifteen tiring
hours with almost not sleep after we left Valdosta. On Monday, we
zig-zagged by car and plane and car another fourteen hours back to
Valdosta.
I have admit I was feeling a tad uneasy, almost guilty, about
celebrating in the midst of death and destruction. But, I strongly
felt that life takes precedent over death. The rabbi officiating
at the ceremonies understood this. She explained that we who had traveled
were there because of our strong sense of family and friendship. She
wisely told of the Jewish tradition that when a funeral procession meets a
wedding party, the former gives way to the latter. It is more than a
symbolic embracement of life. It is a commitment to life, the rabbi
reminded us. Life goes on. Life is good.
I saw and felt that persistence in life, that commitment to live,
in the wee hours of Atlanta. A man entered the airplane slowly waving a
small American flag saying, "F--- the terrorists." He defiantly nodded
his head and smiled. There was applause, mine included. Tears came to my
eyes. I don't think I was the only one. I, too, felt a patriotic
obligation to fly. Maybe the planes that crashed into the Towers and the
Pentagon also shattered our complacency. More importantly, they awakened
our consciousness out from a taking-for-granted stupor and slammed into
our psyche to remind us who we are. That man colorfully said it all.
Buildings are structures. They even may be symbols. They are not that
indefinable but powerful American spirit. And if it was the
American-thrashing and American-hating terrorists' intent to destroy our
will to go on living, they will be defeated by people such as this man who
refuse to let that spiritual destruction happen.
It is wrong to think that America goes on unchanged. It is also
wrong to think that America is utterly changed. It's okay to be nervous
and even afraid. The thing is not to let that nervousness and fear
control you. Things may not be the same, but they will be okay in another
kind of way and in the same way. And so, on that plane, I also felt a
firmer resolve to go on being an American.
I cherish my basic freedoms, civil liberties, and the sanctity of
the individual. In this struggle, whatever the contrary temptation, we are
invited and challenged to protect our rights and freedoms. It is the only
right thing to do. It is the only right way to do things. We don't need
another set of blotting and smudging Alien and Sedition Acts. We need to
write clear and fine words and phrases. To leave those freedoms and
liberties we so cherish unaltered, not to forget who we are, to retain
dearly what we value, and remember how we should live is an essential part
of winning in this "war." No, it is THE essential part. If we don't, as
we've lost before we've begun to fight.
And so, I don't think at all of the rhetoric of "crusade" or the
"first war of the 21st century" or "dead or alive." I think most of the
public statements that the FBI, while in the midst of this crisis, while
it is engaged in a massive hunt for the perpetrators of this hienious
attack, will with equal vigor pursue hate crimes launched against innocent
Arab and Muslim Americans. That is a powerful statement of what we are
all about.
Of all the pictures I've seen on TV and in print, the most
powerful image burned in my soul during these terrible days is not that of
a plane hitting a building or of the collapse of structure mesmerizing as
they may be. It is that of three heroic NY firemen raising the flag over
the rubble as if it was a reenactment of the marines on Iwo Jima. In
those firemen and the police, lead by real values to risk and lose their
lives, we saw that as steel and glass and concrete collapsed, the American
spirit rose up stronger than it ever has been in a long time. I saw
images of death and destruction born from a hateful womb. I also saw with
pride images of courage, generosity, and strength emerging out from a
compassionate womb. I saw resolve, character, and the resurrection of a
spirit that has brought us together. I am not ashamed to admit that I
cannot count how many times I was brought to tears. I was reminded that
love of country is really love of this country values, liberties, and
freedoms. It is the glue that binds all of us diverse people together into
one people. "I love America" doesn't mean a thing if we don't care about
and care for and love one another.
And to all those extremists on the left and right, I now say we
are a good people. We are not a perfect people. We have built a just
place to live, a fair place to live, and a decent place to live. We have
not built a perfect palce to live. The American spirit won't be
conquered. We'll preserve what we have and write to improve on it. We
will defiantly rebuild and live. Others places have risen from greater
ashes: London, Sarajevo, Tokyo, Hiroshima, Nagasaki, Dresden, Berlin,
London, Beirut, San Francisco, Chicago. And so will New York and
Washington.
Those terrorists reminded me who I am. They reinforced who I am
as an American and more importantly as a human being. I will not--I
cannot even if I wanted to--separate my mind and body from my heart. And
when I return to class today, this is who and what I will share and
discuss with students when they inevitably will ask me today if I had felt
a "fear of flying."
Make it a good day.
--Louis--
Louis Schmier www.therandomthoughts.com
Department of History www.halcyon.com/arborhts/louis.html
Valdosta State University
Valdosta, GA 31698 /~\ /\ /\
229-333-5947 /^\ / \ / /~\ \ /~\__/\
/ \__/ \/ / /\ /~\/ \
/\/\-/ /^\_____\____________/__/_______/^\
-_~ / "If you want to climb mountains, \ /^\
_ _ / don't practice on mole hills" - \____
