LJ Idol: Friends and Rivals, Week 4: "Terrorism in the Modern Age"
"Uncomfortably Numb"
The normal routine on summer weekdays, at least during the summer before I left for college, was that I would call my mom at work when I woke up. So the fact that the phone woke me up at 8:00 was a little strange, especially since I wasn't usually up at that hour.
"Hello?" I mumbled into the receiver.
"Good morning." Mom sounded very, very down. "Have you been watching the news?"
I blinked away the sleepiness. This was strange indeed. "No. You woke me up."
"Oh...Well, there's been a terrible accident....Some planes crashed into the World Trade Center, and it's gone."
"What?"
"Just...turn on the news. And stay in the house, alright? We don't know what's going on out there."
"Okay....I love you."
*****
You know the rest of the story, of course: turns out it wasn't an accident at all. On the one hand, I still remember (after nearly a decade and a half) turning on the news that day and being unable to turn it off for the next ten hours. On the other hand...that was fifteen years ago?
We were supposed to be safer after 9/11. We put security measures in place everywhere, started taking off our shoes at the airport, gathered massive amounts of data from all of our citizens, and did any number of other things which (depending on your perspective) either preserve our freedoms or take them away.
And we're no safer now; there's some form of terrorist attack on our soil every day. (I can't imagine calling mass shootings anything else; their sole purpose is to strike fear in our hearts.) Nobody would say they're accepting this, but we seem powerless to do anything about it.
Everyone agrees on the goal, of course--that is, not dying--but any solution proposed for how to get there seems to have the backing of exactly half of the population. Which is another thing that can make you crazy, along with the fears we all have about diseases, the economy, the end result of celebrity culture, and all the other monsters under our beds.
How did we get here? Where do we go? How much longer can we remain a society? I can't claim to have the answers, but the fact that I even have to raise the questions is frightening.
(There's one more fear for the list.)
*****
I came home from work a few weeks ago to find Mom sitting on the couch, watching the news. "You saw this? San Bernardino?"
I nod. "Yeah. Sad. But you could write this story every day, just swapping in the name of a different city."
"I mean, the target was supposedly just...a regular old meeting. I don't get why they would go after them--it's not a political thing, right?" Mom's voice is shaky.
"Unless the point was to make people worried that it could happen anywhere, anytime."
We sit in silence for a couple of minutes, watching the news say things they'll surely have to retract later. Finally, I lean over and give Mom a big hug. "I love you."
*****
Love. Maybe that's the answer.
Love deeply, love freely. Love those close to you, love strangers.
Love for any reason, or for no reason. Love in your words, your actions, your thoughts.
Just...love.
Is that so hard?
*****
"There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear." --1 John 4:18
The normal routine on summer weekdays, at least during the summer before I left for college, was that I would call my mom at work when I woke up. So the fact that the phone woke me up at 8:00 was a little strange, especially since I wasn't usually up at that hour.
"Hello?" I mumbled into the receiver.
"Good morning." Mom sounded very, very down. "Have you been watching the news?"
I blinked away the sleepiness. This was strange indeed. "No. You woke me up."
"Oh...Well, there's been a terrible accident....Some planes crashed into the World Trade Center, and it's gone."
"What?"
"Just...turn on the news. And stay in the house, alright? We don't know what's going on out there."
"Okay....I love you."
*****
You know the rest of the story, of course: turns out it wasn't an accident at all. On the one hand, I still remember (after nearly a decade and a half) turning on the news that day and being unable to turn it off for the next ten hours. On the other hand...that was fifteen years ago?
We were supposed to be safer after 9/11. We put security measures in place everywhere, started taking off our shoes at the airport, gathered massive amounts of data from all of our citizens, and did any number of other things which (depending on your perspective) either preserve our freedoms or take them away.
And we're no safer now; there's some form of terrorist attack on our soil every day. (I can't imagine calling mass shootings anything else; their sole purpose is to strike fear in our hearts.) Nobody would say they're accepting this, but we seem powerless to do anything about it.
Everyone agrees on the goal, of course--that is, not dying--but any solution proposed for how to get there seems to have the backing of exactly half of the population. Which is another thing that can make you crazy, along with the fears we all have about diseases, the economy, the end result of celebrity culture, and all the other monsters under our beds.
How did we get here? Where do we go? How much longer can we remain a society? I can't claim to have the answers, but the fact that I even have to raise the questions is frightening.
(There's one more fear for the list.)
*****
I came home from work a few weeks ago to find Mom sitting on the couch, watching the news. "You saw this? San Bernardino?"
I nod. "Yeah. Sad. But you could write this story every day, just swapping in the name of a different city."
"I mean, the target was supposedly just...a regular old meeting. I don't get why they would go after them--it's not a political thing, right?" Mom's voice is shaky.
"Unless the point was to make people worried that it could happen anywhere, anytime."
We sit in silence for a couple of minutes, watching the news say things they'll surely have to retract later. Finally, I lean over and give Mom a big hug. "I love you."
*****
Love. Maybe that's the answer.
Love deeply, love freely. Love those close to you, love strangers.
Love for any reason, or for no reason. Love in your words, your actions, your thoughts.
Just...love.
Is that so hard?
*****
"There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear." --1 John 4:18