We know, it’s the anniversary of the September 11 attacks.  But honestly, we haven’t thought about it very much.  It’s not that we’re out of the loop or away from the problem---in fact each of us lives within a couple of miles of the World Trade Center site in New York City.  It’s just that in taking our own spiritual advice to heart we’ve been focusing so much on what we can do instead of what we can’t control---concentrating on what we want to happen, instead of dreading what we don’t want to happen---that the old stuff doesn’t surface unless someone reminds us about it.  In hind site, this is actually quite remarkable.  One year ago, we almost couldn’t have imagined writing this article.  Those first few nights after the 11th were spent barely sleeping with the television or radio on just in case something else happened.  And we were the lucky ones.  But after a while, imagining that we could be get back to our everyday lives, perhaps even in a kinder world, is what has gotten us and many Americans to a point where life has regained some normalcy.  To twist around Reverend Jesse’s words, hope has kept us alive.  

We don’t mean to imply that people are not still grieving, or that they shouldn’t be.  There is no one right way to feel or react.  In trying to commemorate such emotional events on a national scale, we run the risk of implying that we all must feel exactly the same way or else we are not united.  Yet, each of us responded so differently when the events occurred---grievers wept, the fearful worried, the faithful remained calm, the critical offered their condemnation, those who never liked city life moved away, and worker-bees came from all over to volunteer.  It was as if we all had our roles to play, and somehow they all fit together.  We were united by our diversity of expression during these highly unusual events and the anniversary of this time should be no exception.   

It seems like an oxymoron that unity is born out of the very differences that it transcends, but it’s really an ancient idea that we are at the same time one and many.  In a way, September 11 was one of the most amazing opportunities that many of us will ever have because we got to experience a bit of this unity.  And, even though the memory of the experience fades as we return to our regularly scheduled lives, the idea that we are all connected must still be within us generating an underlying positive consciousness that has carried us through the last year despite all the frightening suggestions of what might have been.