From Chaos

This article is a departure from this topic's usual content, but then this is an unusual time that has been thrust upon us. I cannot ignore the heinous terrorist attacks upon New York and Washington,D.C. Their impact has forever marked the psyche of all Americans, individually and collectively. The events of Black Tuesday fill my mind and, like most of us, I have been unable to think of much else.

How does one process the atrocities we all witnessed? How does one make sense of using domestic airliners, with innocent people aboard, as weapons of destruction? Whence does such evil come? How can one truly fathom the extent of the damage in its physical, emotional, and spiritual entirety? How can we help those who were most affected? How will our lives change (for they will)? Will our leaders take us into war? How will we heal, individually and as a nation? Groping for answers to these and a myriad other questions seems to lead the mind into a scene as chaotic as the rubble of the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.

Our emotions fluctuate and swirl in a different kind of chaos. Anger, grief, compassion, the desire to help, unity, vengefulness, helplessness, courage, and even hatred blend into one another. Many of us feel off-center: our hearts and souls are raw, no longer protected by the filter of our intellects. What mattered before, no longer matters. The world is taking on a new shape, and we must make sense of the temporary chaos.

Chaos, whether external or internal, is a state of utter confusion where the surreal reigns. It is the antithesis of the simplicity we seek. Indeed it may seem that even simplicity itself has become complicated.

Another definition of chaos is "the formless matter supposed to have preceded the existence of the ordered universe." (The Random House Dictionary) Perhaps we will be able to make sense of recent events, to find a thread of order within the disorder, starting with simple things. For example, what have we observed? We have seen the worst of human nature,true. But we are also privileged to see it at its very best, as the simple values common to most of the human race begin to assert themselves.

Values such as courage, generosity, unity, compassion, helpfulness, and spirituality have been among the first to emerge from the chaos. When blood was needed, donors lined up for hours outside busy blood banks to make their donations. An NPR reporter interviewed a 36-year old man who helped to carry a wheelchair-bound woman down 68 flights of stairs to safety before their building collapsed. Rescue workers from all over the country have arrived in New York, and those who have been interviewed by the media seem to feel that it is a privilege to do what they can. Our friends in other nations have shown solidarity with us. There are uncounted instances of the simple ideals that comprise the human spirit.

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