A Divided Nation

It is the 10th year anniversary of the September 11 attacks. The iconic terrorism that has changed the lives of victims, as well as the lives of Moslems, as the misrepresentation of their religion flourished into painful stereotypes. As the first plane crashed one of the twin towers, the world watched in disbelief. Such terror only existed in war laden countries, such catastrophe only happened in lands unlucky enough to be situated in the ring of fire, such pain and tears only seen in the faces of parents losing their children from hunger. Not in the US, not in the land of freedom and opportunity, not in the strongest country in the world. But it did. And then the second tower was hit, along with it was the pride of America.

Years later, stories of 9/11 keep unfolding. There are victims from Moslem families whose families are torn and confused as they grief together with the Americans, but at the same time are discriminated by the stereotypes. There are the firefighter brothers who are still in need of lung transplants to recover from inhaling the thick smoke. There are the stories of parents working tirelessly to find any remnants of their children. There are children who are starting to understand what happened to their parents that day. People are still crying. They need closure.

I visited ground zero a month ago and saw the effort for that closure. The new twin towers stood high in front of me. They were not finished yet, but they were showing the promise of regaining back the pride and strength of America. They were bringing peace to the grieving, because the loss of their loved ones were appreciated. I entered the 9/11 museum. I wanted to know more details. It's hard though to just "know more". There was a wall full of flyers on missing people. I sat down on a bench and just looked a them. These strangers to me were really just faces, but as surreal as it was, I could assimilate that these are people with best friends and families, who were just working a 9 to 5 job, probably saving for something more fun than daily routines. They were as real as my sister or my dad. And there were thousands of them. There was a young guy sitting next to me. He was there a lot longer than I was, just staring. I wonder if one of those faces was his loved one.

Unfortunately, exactly 10 years after 9/11, when people are trying to recover from an act of absurdity, in Ambon, Indonesia a riot between Christian and Muslim communities broke, killing 3 people and injuring around 60. It made me think of the boxes that we have created in this world and how it angers us so very deeply when our box is touched by others. There is a strong sense of belonging towards where we come from (location and culture) or what we believe in (religion) such that if there are two strangers, somebody we completely do not know before, we would trust the one that come from our box (or close to it) and in the process distrust the other one. We would somehow love that person more than the other. While it might be human nature, there's something inherently wrong and unjust. Aren't we suppose to be just "human". I am one and you too, and not human who is an Indonesian and Catholic (or fill in yours), for example.

At church today, there was a small boy around 4 years old. He sat in front of me. Throughout the mass he was playing with his coloring book. He colored the picture way out of the line. He was not paying attention at all to what was happening in the mass. But, during the sign of peace where we shake or hug each other, he stood up on the bench and shook everybody's hands within his reach. He walked along the bench to approach everybody he could see, offered his left hand and said loudly "Peace be with you." He was left-handed. The adults did not greet back as loud as he did, we did not take the effort to reach out the ones that were a little further away, too. But, this boy, just made our day with his trust, peace, and hospitality of a child. After that he went on coloring his book. Such joy and freedom in understanding that peace is to be extended to all no matter what. We adults don't understand that.

Also at church, the choir sang a hymn called "This is My Song." This is the first time I heard it. Coming into church, I thought today would be all about remembering the 9/11 victims and joining in the celebration of having hope and strength. Today is when we embrace Americans and the pain of this tragedy. But this song told me that no, it's never about a dream and well-being of a country, not America, not Indonesia. It's about a whole and undivided nation under God.

To the victims of 9/11, to the victims of Ambon riot, to the victims of the brokenness of humanity.

This is my song, O God of all the nations,

A song of peace for lands afar and mine.

This is my home, the country where my heart is;

Here are my hopes, my dreams, my holy shrine;

But other hearts in other lands are beating

With hopes and dreams as true and high as mine

My country's skies are bluer than the ocean,

And sunlight beams on clover-leaf and pine.

But other lands have sunlight too and clover,

And skies are everywhere as blue as mine.

Oh, hear my song, O God of all the nations,

A song of peace for their land and for mine.