Forgiveness' Freedom

It was 18 years ago.  That means there are first year college students who have known no other world but the one punctuated for us by those planes and those towers and mostly those lives lost.  I'm still frightened by the memory.

What an incredible imagination, hardly anything but evil could have schemed so well to accomplish such a horror.  It seems our national defenses overt and covert are still learning how to deal with the "bin Ladens" who remain and continue to scheme.

There is no way to isolate the actions mass or singular of any terrorist.  Sadly it is not always their evil that begins the bombing, the shooting, the kidnapping.  They will almost always have some sense of injustice, some other's evil to redress that ends in what seems like a constant horror now.

Some of what I see now is a gift from God.  That is my having a perspective that protects me from a confusion of my own ego, my faith, and my citizenship.  I am not the one from whom forgiveness comes for those murderous acts.  But I surely have what God provides through me.

I wish this were case for all of those who lost a beloved family member or friend in the attack and its aftermath but for me one gift of forgiveness is that it frees me a little from the horror and it's haunting.  I do not have to remain afraid or only see those actors as of an evil for which we have no protection.  The gift extends and makes it possible to think about why it all happened.  Because God is the source of love and freedom I don't have to be afraid.

And so I'm asking a hard question; one that still triggers fear in many of the people I love. But here it is: what have we learned about ourselves, our nation, our culture, our place in the world that could be deemed an injustice permitting that retribution or even more so needing God's forgiveness?

I'm not asking about our response, most of it was heroic and courageous.  Some of it was misguided.

I'm asking about who "we" were to the world before those cells were empowered, before those passports were stamped, before those flying lessons were taught, before the tickets were bought. And I'm asking about who we can become.

Because of who God is I'm not afraid to ask.  Because of who God is I know I can still make a difference in that world and do more than push my chest out in a bravado that too often imitates patriotism.  I can forgive. 

And after that,  I can look for those ways we set a stage; not by ourselves but still with a presumption that all we did was meant for good.  Or at least enough "for good" that it covered our sins.  As if that's how goodness works.

Because of who God is I know that forgiveness exists, that it works, that it works for me, and for us too.  God is the source of love and freedom and because of who God is the whole world can be forgiven.  Without that forgiveness we may never really know why.