Remembering 9/11: How We Choose Connection Over Division

I don’t know about you, but it feels like we all need to get the sage out…

With 9/11 on our hearts and the seemingly endless cycle of violence we keep witnessing… I think about how our parents and grandparents faced Pearl Harbor, D-Day, the atomic bomb and other traumatic events… They found ways to come together to grieve and remember and celebrate lives… Today feels like one of those moments when we need to lean on that same resilience.

On what started out as a beautiful September morning, turned into something so hard to comprehend. We saw the images of the first tower burning and could not believe what we were being told about what happened, and then as many of us watched on TV the second plane hit. Still how we could not believe what was in front of us. Then began the crumbling and total collapse of those massive structures. And as hoards of frightened and injured people were running for their lives, there were those who ran toward the horror believing there were lives to be saved, and knowing most would not.

Yet even in that unimaginable darkness, we witnessed something else - people choosing connection over division, strangers helping strangers, communities coming together to hold each other up. Just like our parents and grandparents before us, we found ways to grieve together, to remember together, to keep believing in what is good.

Today feels heavy again. The world feels divided. But I still believe in our capacity to choose connection over separation, to run toward each other instead of away. We have done it before. We can do it again.

Maybe that is what the sage is really for - clearing space for us to see each other clearly, to remember what we have in common, to keep choosing hope.

This morning I cleansed our home with sage and held space in prayer. Now I am thinking about how we can hold space for others - in our lives, our businesses, our communities - who are struggling too.

Open minds, open hearts, open hands.