When the Homily is about Immunology

9/11

I was in the midst of three glorious days off from work in order to empty the Snohomish River of her Coho, but we were getting a late start because my "stay-at-home dad" fishing partner had to drop his youngest off at preschool first. So, by the time I awoke the towers were gone, but the mystery of it all remained - the entire day on the river was marked by periodic phone calls to my wife to see if another plane had hit.

By what I saw and heard on the TV screen initially, I assumed that major airliner had crashed in downtown Seattle. Soon as they replayed the footage of the planes slamming into the buildings and their subsequent collapse, I was better acquainted with what was happening – at least as well as everyone else was I guess.

On that day we really did not see the people being burned as they hung out of the windows, or the jumpers who chose the fall to the fire. And it was only a few days ago that I saw the horrific video of one man climbing out of a window and down some 10 feet or so as he clung to some cloth rope he must have fabricating himself from a collection of office materials. My heart sunk and I audibly gasped when he lost his grip and fell the 800 or so feet to the street below. I felt the same futile, capitulating frustration with fate that he seemed to feel, for by his posture as he fell, it really seemed as if he had accepted what awaited him.

It is and it was a horrific thing.

I am ashamed to say that at the time, I believed, as too many others still do, that we had this coming. Without outright saying it, I felt we deserved this. I was firmly entrenched in the camp which believed that somehow the United States’ foreign policy was so evil that it in turn inspired evil capable of flying airplanes into buildings...capable of making people jump from 800 feet.

But then Beslan happened: Bombs strung over the heads of half naked school children. And then I watched in horror as Nicholas Berg screamed for mercy as his head was sawn off and the perpetrators of the terrifying act chanted like maniacal and mindless robots their religious proclamation: God is the greatest. And then I began to read and listen to what the "enemy" was saying and what the "enemy" believed and what the "enemy" desired of us. Having done so, I realized there is no longer any point to that word being in quotation marks.

These were no freedom fighters against American Imperialism, these monsters represented the most intolerant, oppressive, and brutal of world visions ever conceived. Even the most pious of Christians, Jews, or ___________ could not hope to sit well with these people – except under complete submission. And not only would Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie have to suffer not getting married for the homosexual cause, they might as well kill themselves to truly share in the cause. The people who flew those planes, the people who strung those bombs, and the people who saw off the heads are the very real image of hatred, bigotry and intolerance.

Let me pause for just a second and clarify the term "tolerance," for you see we Americans (and perhaps the west in general) think that tolerance means you accept the ideas, beliefs and values of others as being equally true or right. Well, that is just dumb. Tolerance means you accept other people's right to hold different ideas, beliefs, and values. But it does not mean that you cannot disagree and you cannot say so and you cannot publically debate them, because if it does mean that then it really isn't tolerance anymore.

Intolerance by our enemy means that you are liable to be killed for your ideas, beliefs, and values. Many people are killed who suffer under their authority - whether legitimate or vigilante style.

I suggest that we might best remember the horror of 9/11 by continuing to practice what they really do hate about us: freedom and tolerance. America isn't perfect, of course, but I'm not bucking to go live in Saudi, Pakistan, or Indonesia where there really isn't a whole lot of tolerance and where an unknown number of intolerant tyrants are dreaming their dreams and acting upon them.

Memory Eternal...a host of different ideas, beliefs, and values were snuffed out on 9/11. Let us be resolutely intolerant of intolerance.