When Reality Bites, Humanity Must Rule

It’s so amazingly seductive. With the jolt of an airplane slicing into the World Trade Center, we have been captured and entranced by the seductiveness of this tragedy. Our most imaginative screenwriters couldn’t craft such a story. At a distance that was what it was like, a movie. The opening scene riveting us to the screen. Build in the intrigue of international terrorism and the anguish of innocent victims. Give us heroes, played by those strong-jawed, determination-in-the-eyes Hollywood stars who vanquish the foe. In the end we walk out of the theater knowing that good prevails over evil. We feel righteous and good about ourselves, and thankful it is only a movie…except…

It’s the real thing. Real planes, real buildings, with real people in them, turning to dust before our eyes. Made real by the stories of the victims’ loved ones. Made real by sweat and fatigue on the faces of the workers at ground zero. Made real by the gathering of people across the country and throughout the world to say a prayer.

As the kids say, "reality bites". It can bite terribly hard. When it bites with such teeth, we are stunned at its ferocity. What could drive someone to such inhumanity? What inspires such incomprehensible hatred? How could some people have such a disregard for life, their own and the lives of total strangers? We are stunned by the scope of the tragedy. Thousands of people perish in a virtual instant. Part of each of us dies at the same time.

Psychologists have identified the course of emotions when personal tragedy strikes. Shock is followed by denial, then anger, then grief, then acceptance. Each of us right now is at his own stage in this process. Me, I’m in a soup of anger and grief, I suspect like most of the country. Anger, aggravated by futility, this frustrating feeling of impotence, drives the desire for revenge. Grief seeps into the day each time I think of or hear about the story of a victim, of the lives torn apart. Yes, thousands are dead, and each death tears into my humanity.

That’s where this turns personal for those who haven’t lost family or friends. We have suffered a blow to our humanity. What makes us human is the spiritual connection we have as people. The murder of another human steals from us all. When we grieve for others, we are also grieving for this loss inside of us.

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