9/11: A Short-Lived Spiritual Awakening?

Where were you on 9/11? How did you react when you saw the twin towers on fire, blackened and smoking? Did you gather your family and friends around you? Did you get on your knees and pray?

I, like people around the world, remember clearly where I was on 9/11. I think I was too shaken up to pray. But I remember how I felt—shocked, scared, and sickened at the suffering of all the victims of 9/11—and I was confused. How could this have happened?

But I also remember the sense of brotherhood (and sisterhood) that I felt from around the world (via memorial satellite broadcasts). For the first time in my life, the whole world was grieving. We were all part of the same family—the human family. We put our differences aside to grieve a tragedy that would define the decade.

And then it was back to business (and bickering, and prejudice, and differences) as usual. Was 9/11, then, just a short-lived spiritual awakening?

I hope not. We are still all part of the human family. I hope that all of the remembrances and memorial celebrations of the 10-year anniversary of 9/11 will remind everyone of what we all felt that tragic day. I hope that we can again drop our differences and hatreds, not just for one day or one week, but for all time.

If the world can become spiritually awakened because of the events of 9/11, then the victims of 9/11 did not die in vain.