A woodworking friend recently dropped off a restored park bench, and our ensuing conversation serves as an ideal marker of the tenth anniversary of 9/11. We had spoken on other occasions about the creativity than can emerge from grief; I did not know until the delivery of this restoration in chestnut that his brother died at the Pentagon. Pain due to this event is etched into his kind face and gentle demeanor, and though the grief is there to stay, beauty wins in the long run.
Two organizations in which he and his wife are involved strive for the lasting peace that comes from forgiveness. As sorrow morphs into positive action, the memories of lost loved ones live forever in the promise of a better future.
Great hope emanates from all the creative individual projects undertaken by members of "Peaceful Tomorrows." They also join voices and through their International Network for Peace strive to restore the rule of law in areas such as immigration, civil liberties, and the workings of military commissions in Guantanamo.
"Beyond the 11th," the foundation sponsoring the fundraising bike rides to support widows and their children in Afghanistan, states its goal definitively: getting beyond unthinkable tragedy and exchanging bitterness for compassion. Violence is a whirling cycle that only the hard work of sowing seeds of peace can halt. Susan Retig started the Foundation as a response to her husband's death on the first plane to strike the towers: a mother of two, pregnant with their third child, this new widow chose to focus on education and job training for Afghan widows. These photos speak volumes:
If the people most intimately scarred by September 11 can move forward and come together to work for non-violent approaches to elevate all humanity, can't everyone learn from their steely-willed love? Theirs is a triumph that we can use for our personal benefit as well as the larger good: the defeat of hate and anger through the energy of active compassion. As Dr. King comes alive in an outcropping of stone in Washington, I can almost hear these words echoing from his monument into a world that needs to hear them again. And again: "Sooner or later, all the peoples of the world will have to discover a way to live together in peace, and thereby transform pending cosmic elegy into a creative psalm of brotherhood. If this is to be achieved, man must evolve for all human conflict a method which rejects revenge, aggression, and retaliation. The foundation for such a method is love" (Nobel Peace Prize Acceptance Speech).
Here's to a call to link arms: before, on, and ever after September 11, 2011.
