By Winnie Bolton
Eleven years ago, terrorists hit America in its heart on 9/11 but America’s heart still beats strongly.
They demolished the steel in our souls. Innocent lives ended leaving widows and widowers, grieving parents and grandparents, children growing up without a parent.
Americans embraced tenacity, strength and courage far beyond the norm of compassion.
The evil we experienced was dwarfed in number and importance by the hundreds of heroes and heroines who demonstrated that God’s goodness is embedded in this confusing world and by doing so restored our salvation and sanity.
I was born, raised, educated and married in the Big Apple, fully participating in the city’s vibrant aliveness. It will always be my beloved home.
My parents arrived in New York from Ireland, were married in St. Francis de Sales Church on the Eastside of Manhattan. I entered this world on a kitchen table with the aid of a midwife one flight above the neighborhood butcher shop on Park Avenue and 98th Street.
On 9/11, Tom and I were living in Mount Angel and as we watched this terrible catastrophe taking place in our home state it pierced our hearts as we knew well the neighborhood with its immense buildings, its wide and narrow streets.
Many times we visited the Twin Towers on convention trips in the past. Years have passed with the city and its residents having sifted through survival and rebuilding, still facing fears of germicidal warfare.
9/11 – a day that is now a part of our history; the future we are facing is a mystery; the present we are living is a gift. If 9/11 taught us anything it taught us to refocus our character and moral fiber as a nation defining our essential freedoms.
One may master all forms of knowledge, may vanquish one’s adversaries, may fight with valor and courage but in the end the honor of a nation depends on the morality of its people.
We could start by becoming a force for spiritual global warming by encouraging harmony rather than conflict, balancing each other to mix and blend, recognizing that difference, diversity is essential for the peace in the world.
