american diversity
I find it alternately fascinating and isolating that I have met only one LCMS member in Washington. There are people who are Jewish, Catholic, non-practicing ELCA, even an agnostic and a Buddhist. I've met just one other who is LCMS, and I don't think he's practicing. It's the most religiously diverse group of people in which I've ever been included. It's fascinating, obviously, because I can hear different points of view, and appreciate those differences. It's isolating and a little disconcerting, though, being different myself. In high school, I was in the minority of students who still went to church, but it didn't matter that much to me; I went because my parents made me. When I first went to college, I didn't often go to church, even though I was surrounded by like-minded Christians. Now that I am far away from Concordia and my little insular LCMS bubble, I find myself missing it. All of my roommates are going out tonight. I am not because I'm going to church tomorrow. I've never felt this way, so different, so removed from people like me. It's strange, but I suppose I should get used to it, until I settle in one spot and stumble upon a new haven.
Along the same vein, I did two silly things today, watched two movies that I shouldn't have watched at all, much less on the same day. Munich and Flight 93. Both movies have to do with Muslim extremists creating terror and wreaking havoc. Both movies include a lot of senseless death. With the five-year anniversary approaching, I am dwelling more and more on my recollections of September 11, 2001, what I was doing, what I thought, what I saw. I will never, ever be able to forget the sight of those towers falling, of the knowledge that I knew to my very core that I was watching hundreds of people die, that I was watching their last moments on Earth. And I remember seeing Arabs in the Middle East, I don't know what country, rejoicing in the streets, not just being happy, but rejoicing, that American lives had ended. I remember recoiling at such a powerful hatred, a feeling I did not understand, that I still do not understand. I struggle to comprehend a culture so different, that its people compulsorily hate my own, for reasons I do not know.
We're living in an age where things do not follow as they should. People are no longer innocent until proven guilty. I sometimes wonder what our lives would be like, if those planes hadn't sailed so tragically into those buildings. Would we have eventually turned out this way anyway, signing away our civil liberties in the name of "safety," giving up our freedom bit by bit for more "security?" I would like to hope not, but who knows?
Along the same vein, I did two silly things today, watched two movies that I shouldn't have watched at all, much less on the same day. Munich and Flight 93. Both movies have to do with Muslim extremists creating terror and wreaking havoc. Both movies include a lot of senseless death. With the five-year anniversary approaching, I am dwelling more and more on my recollections of September 11, 2001, what I was doing, what I thought, what I saw. I will never, ever be able to forget the sight of those towers falling, of the knowledge that I knew to my very core that I was watching hundreds of people die, that I was watching their last moments on Earth. And I remember seeing Arabs in the Middle East, I don't know what country, rejoicing in the streets, not just being happy, but rejoicing, that American lives had ended. I remember recoiling at such a powerful hatred, a feeling I did not understand, that I still do not understand. I struggle to comprehend a culture so different, that its people compulsorily hate my own, for reasons I do not know.
We're living in an age where things do not follow as they should. People are no longer innocent until proven guilty. I sometimes wonder what our lives would be like, if those planes hadn't sailed so tragically into those buildings. Would we have eventually turned out this way anyway, signing away our civil liberties in the name of "safety," giving up our freedom bit by bit for more "security?" I would like to hope not, but who knows?
posted by Kat @ 21:37
2 Comments:
At 12:00 PM,
On More Serious Matters said…
I have this feeling that if not for those two planes, then for something else. It seems, sadly, that most Americans have come to a point where they take for granted the liberties which exist for them and no one else. With such an attitude, it's rather simple to give things up that you don't think about using in the name of personal safety, or what you believe will be personal safety.
If those planes hadn't landed in New York, however, there could have been only three reasons: 1) the individuals who caused it to subvert its course did not ever board the plane because they were not allowed to board (being caught beforehand in their plot for what could be myriad reasons which could lead to all sorts of conclusions about either liberties already withheld or simply a more effective intelligence communication) 2) the plot itself never existed; the individuals involved never collaborated on that day and at that time to bring something so disastrous to fruition (this is probably the most unlikely of the three, for it would erase hundreds of years of developing bad relations) or 3)the individuals on board were able to prevent the plane's takeover or landing in the area eventually at risk. The third choice would still result in the loss of American lives, just not as many, and perhaps not in such a central area. Regardless, I don't believe that it was the event itself that truly made the ultimate difference in the existence and prolongation of our civil liberties, but instead the reactions of our governmental bodies to pre-existing conditions.
At 9:50 AM,
Anonymous said…
Yeah, watching upsetting movies about people's senseless violence on others back-to-back usually is an unnerving experience at best. I know what you mean about all those flashbacks. I keep thinking about the building sense of dread I had while walking to work from my room in GR that day. I still get chills just thinking about it. And I remember the people celebrating over it too. I remember being mroe saddened by that than anuthing else. I just kept thinking that when people start rejoicing at the deaths of others it means they have stopped seeing all humans as having value. I keep flashing back to that when things like the signs that blames America for the Isreal-Hezbollah war that just happened last month went up. And then to the signs blaming the Jews for a million things that weren't actually their fault in Nazi Germany. Blaming someone else for all your problems helps you bond together, but does nothing to actually fix the problems. It just makes it easier to kill those people you blamed for the real issues you should be dealing with instead. It's really extremely tragic.
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