9/11: Violence or Compassion?

That morning I took the train as usual to Manhattan. In Grand Central Station I noticed people gathered around a TV monitor in a book store. I stopped and saw pictures of smoke coming from one of the World Trade Center towers. The announcer said that it might have been a plane off course.

I walked to the UN and took an elevator to my office floor. A group of colleagues was gathered around a computer screen. They said that two planes had crashed into the Twin Towers and that the UN was being evacuated in case we were another target. I went into my office and cried thinking of the people dying in the buildings and planes.

A colleague and I walked to a friend’s apartment. From there I could see smoke billowing from the Twin Towers far in the south. Because the apartment was across the street from the UN, we left and walked back to Grand Central Station. The streets were streaming with people walking north. There were crowds around the doors of Grand Central with police monitoring the flow of people. Inside I found a train going to Fleetwood just north of the city where my youngest son lived.

He picked me up and took me to his apartment. His girlfriend was there along with my wife and older son. They had just arrived after trying to get to Columbia Presbyterian Hospital for my wife’s chemotherapy session and then learning of the crashes. Everyone was sober and quiet. I cried again and said that life would never be the same. I thought of who might have forced the planes to crash and wept for their confusion, anger and hatred.

A few days later I wrote several essays on the tragedy recommending that the US not respond in violence and hatred but with dialogue, compassion and understanding. I proposed that a multi-billion dollar poverty eradication global fund be established to help those in need whose despair might drive them to acts of violence. I was so deeply sad when my country attacked Afghanistan.

After 13 years of my country’s violent actions in Iraq and elsewhere, the world is in more confusion and chaos with more fear, anger and hatred. When will we learn? Responding to violence with violence only creates more violence. Responding to hatred with hatred only creates more hatred. We must cut the flow of cause and effect. We must be still and silent. We must listen. We must understand. We must forgive. We must offer acts of kindness and compassion to relieve others' suffering. We must stop people from harming other people.

Now with climate chaos in full swing, civilization itself may be in danger of collapse over the next few decades. How do we reinvent a world that works for everyone and honors the life support systems of planet Earth? We must practice cultural and religious tolerance and understanding. We must foster social and economic justice. We must create a compassionate civilization or suffer the consequences.