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Trying to Make Sense Of It All
By Adam Richter
Gift of Grace Lutheran Church in Wallingford publicly denounces Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson. |
"I don't think we need to be confrontational, we need to be communicational," she said.
Ondre, a New York native who now lives in Queen Anne, said the gathering helped ease her pain.
"It felt so good to reconnect," she said. Thousands of people showed up on Saturday, September 15 to fill the International Fountain with flowers and cards, and mourn the thousands of people killed. Fire trucks overflowed with bouquets. Red Cross volunteers handed out pamphlets on grieving. Peer counselors from an organization called Reevaluation Counseling Communities (RCC) held up handwritten cardboard signs inviting people to share their feelings. The vigil was supposed to last four hours on Saturday, but people kept showing up until Tuesday to pay their respects, donate flowers, and mourn. Eleta Wright, a peer counselor with RCC, said she hoped that by talking about their feelings, whether sorrow or anger, people would begin to think more clearly.
"Our best thinking doesn't always come out immediately," she said. "I want us to back up, question ourselves and each other, to see in retrospect what we might have done differently." Tanya Ruckstuhl-Valenti, a licensed clinical social worker who was not at Seattle Center on Saturday, also stressed the importance of having people talk their feelings out.
"When people are under trauma, one of the ways they process the poison of trauma is verbally," she said. But, she added, it's important not to let anger control our actions. That could well be what the terrorists want the United States to do. "If we rush to war, we will be responding to the invitation to World War III," she said.
Ellie, another peer counselor at the vigil, said she did not want the United States to respond to the terrorists with violence. "I don't personally think that retribution is going to help at all," she said.
Retribution may not help, but it appears to be where we're headed. From the day of the attacks President Bush discussed the subject in terms of war. He called the World Trade Center and Pentagon attacks "an act of war," and later called for the capture of Osama bin Laden "dead or alive." Part of the $40 billion aid package will go to military spending, and the United States has sent two aircraft carrier groups to the Persian Gulf as part of "Operation Infinite Justice." Karen Tilford, a West Seattle resident who attended the Seattle Center vigil, said she's unsure if the United States should retaliate with force. "My heart says one thing, and my mind says another," she said.
As focused as the Bush Administration is on war, some in the community are equally committed to peace. The Reverend Judith Schultz, pastor at Crown Hill United Methodist Church, said violent retribution will not bring an end to terrorism. "I don't know how you teach morality," she said, "except by setting a good example, not [by] returning evil for evil." What the United States should do, said Schultz, is spend time reflecting on what caused the terrorist attacks, not simply comforting each other with shows of patriotism.
"I'm not sure that I can just wave the American flag and say, we're good and they're evil," she said. The fact is, said Schultz, the United States does not live up to its ideals.
The Reverend Rich Lang, a pastor at Trinity United Methodist Church in Ballard, said that responding with war will continue a cycle of violence that has pervaded much of the 20th century, which Lang called the bloodiest century in history.
"The 20th century should teach us that anger doesn't work," he said. Like Schultz, Lang suggested that Americans do some self-examination and look at the causes of this kind of violence. He not only opposes military action, against Osama bin Laden and others, he has a more radical solution: feeding our enemies.
"Maybe it's time for a Marshall Plan for the Middle East," said Lang, referring to the American humanitarian aid given to postwar Europe at the end of World War II. "I'd rather see $40 billion invested in bread than bombs."
But as noble as that kind of relief sounds, Lang is not optimistic that we'll see Congressional leaders push for humanitarian aid. Such initiative would require visionary leadership, said Lang, but "the despair of our time is, we don't have it."
It will take time, but the United States could grow older and wiser from the events of September 11, said Schultz. She said she hopes people realize now that material goods do not offer security from the dangers of the world.
"Their security is not in buildings, or in money," she said. "To live with that knowledge is to live with the kind of wisdom that's also borne of suffering."
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