Ten years ago

Between now and this Sunday we will be deluged by accounts of people telling us where they were on the morning of the terrorist attacks on the United States. That is entirely as it should be. December 7, 1941, November 22, 1963 and September 11, 2001, are three days that changed America forever. They are days whose events are etched into the minds of all Americans who were alive at the time and old enough to understand them. As someone who has an almost pathological memory of my whereabouts during momentous news events, I can remember almost every detail of September 11, 2001. And since my story is virtually identical to the story of every other American not in the direct line of fire that day, it is perfectly irrelevant.

I will however share for a moment my memories of the day exactly one year later, September 11, 2002. I was in Los Angeles working at one of the city's major art museums. In LA like everywhere else in the country, full scale public events were planned to commemorate the first anniversary of 9/11. Having been involved in the art world for a very long time, I've become accustomed to the political leanings of the vast majority of people in that world which as you can imagine are shall we say, to the left of center. My own politics are not entirely out of sync with theirs, just perhaps slightly more nuanced, I do try to listen to all sides and when necessary, break from the party line on occasion. For example, unlike many of the people I come in contact with on a daily basis, I don't have an overwhelming distrust of our country and its institutions. Not that I'm a jingoistic, flag waiving, my country right or wrong type of individual, but I do love my country despite its shortcomings.

Having said that, I was still unprepared for the conversation that took place during lunch with some of my colleagues from that LA institution, the gist of which was: "so what's with all this fuss about 9/11?" Frankly it was the first time I heard anyone address 9/11 without the gravitas it deserves, out of a deep respect for the victims and their families. Not these folks. "People die all the time...", someone said, "why should we place so much energy on this one event?" Another added: "...besides Americans are hated all over the world and we probably had it coming anyway."

Of course there is some truth to those words. No, we don't go out of our way to remember victims on the anniversary every single tragedy, and yes, our government's occasional forays both before and since 9/11 have created great resentment toward our country around the world. Like it or not, some folks do indeed hate us.

Still I find it amazing that there are people in this world whose hearts are so hardened by living in their own smug little cocoon of cynicism, that they cannot break free, not even for the most gut-wrenching experience they or any of us will likely ever experience, even if it was only from a distance.

I was reminded of those remarks the other day after hearing a snide remark about our museum's exhibiting some pictures of the World Trade Center (taken in happier times), in honor of the tenth anniversary of that terrible day. Granted, I haven't heard those sentiments expressed very often in the past ten years. Most folks I know who may at times feel a bit overwhelmed by all the attention to the event, out of respect for the dead, keep those opinions to themselves.

There will certainly be lots of coverage of 9/11 this Sunday, and I'll probably miss most of it.

This Sunday, the tenth anniversary of the terrorist attacks, I plan to go to church and pray for the victims of 9/11 and for the loved ones they left behind. I'll especially remember the first responders who without any regard to their own safety, went into those buildings to do their job, saving the lives of others. I'll think of all those folks who went to Washington, DC and New York, also at great personal risk and without compensation to themselves, to help out in any way they could. Of course I will also remember our servicemen and women who put their lives on the line every day in the service of our country. And however futile this may sound to some of you, I will be praying for peace in the world.

This Sunday by happenstance will be an unusually busy day for us. We are going to two first birthday celebrations AND the baptism of a new born. Most importantly, I will be spending the day with my family. I can't think of a more fitting way to spend September 11, 2011.

After all, life goes on.

Post Script...

My day went mostly as planned. Either by pure coincidence or by divine providence, the gospel reading for Sunday, September 11, 2011 was the parable of the unforgiving servant who after having his own enormous debt forgiven out of compassion by his master, refused to forgive a trivial debt owed to him by another servant. An amazingly apt and challenging lesson for us about forgiveness, on the anniversary of one of the most painful days in our history.

I did manage to catch most of the coverage of the memorials in New York, Washington and Shanksville, and a part of the film shot by the two French film maker brothers who were in the process of shooting a documentary on a firehouse in Lower Manhattan when the attacks on the World Trade Center took place. Never during the day yesterday were my thoughts far from the events of ten years ago, but the most compelling moment was during the recessional hymn in church when we sang America the Beautiful. I completely lost it during the fourth verse:

O beautiful for patriot dream
That sees beyond the years
Thine alabaster cities gleam
Undimmed by human tears!

His unfulfilled legacy

On the day the Martin Luther King National Memorial opened to the public, an unprecedented earthquake shook Washington D.C. If that were not enough, as we speak, Hurricane Irene is descending upon the East Coast, postponing the monument's official unveiling indefinitely. It seems the struggles that Martin Luther King endured during his short life have not eluded him in death.

Like the man it commemorates, the memorial has its detractors. The biggest gripe seems to be the choice of artist to conceive and realize the monument. Finding an explanation for why an American artist wasn't chosen to portray a great American hero isn't so difficult. The fact is, unless they specialize in kitsch, American artists don't do monumental very well anymore. We can make monumental pieces about trivial subjects, or understated works centered on larger than life themes. We're terrific with irony, but we haven't a clue these days on how to make a serious, monumental piece about a genuine hero. Perhaps it's simply because we don't believe in ourselves anymore.

When you need a monument to a larger than life figure, where better to go than China? Enter Lei Yixin, who cut his teeth creating massive likenesses of Mao Zedong in stone. To Lei's credit, with the exception of its impressive size, this memorial is no Chairman Martin. Lei's Dr. King stands defiant, yet contemplative, not as a demigod, but as a man who appears to have the weight of the world, or at least his people, upon his shoulders. I haven't seen it in person but from photographs the new monument seems to get the idea of the man and appears to be a powerful tribute.

Still it is not without bitter irony that the man who devoted his life to justice and economic equality for African American people, should have his memorial outsourced to China.

Regardless, the new monument brings Dr. King back into the public imagination where he belongs.

National tragedies normally have a way of bringing the public together. Not so with Martin Luther King's assassination, which ripped this country apart limb from limb. I don't think it is unreasonable to say that when Dr. King was assassinated in 1968, with him all hope of racial harmony and equality in this country, at least during my lifetime, was lost.

As I became re-acquainted last week with the "I Have a Dream" speech, one line particularly spoke out to me. Dr. King said early in the speech:

"One hundred years later...", (after the Emancipation Proclamation), "...the Negro is still languishing in the corners of American society and finds himself an exile in his own land."

Perhaps for the first time in my life I put myself in the shoes of the people in the African American community who rioted in cities all over the country after King's murder. No longer do I feel that the violence, regrettable as it was, was not justified. With the image of people exiled in their own land in mind, I could understand why folks threw up their hands believing that this country had nothing left to offer. Martin Luther King preached non-violence in order to bring about justice for his people, and where did it get him? Dr. King did nothing more than confirm the rights guaranteed in our constitution. The only difference was he added the "for all" part that American children recite in school every day, preceded by the words liberty and justice. For that he went to jail in Birmingham. For that bricks were thrown at him in Chicago. For that he was killed in Memphis.

As a result, instead of an outpouring of love and sympathy, hearts were hardened all over America after April 4th, 1968.

On that terrible evening and in the days to follow, fires fueled by suffering, frustration, desperation and rage lit up the nighttime skies in cities all over America. Perhaps the more militant leaders of the black community were right, if there was ever going to be justice in this country, Dr. King's pacifist tactics would not work. All hope that the struggle for freedom and justice could be fought without violence, was over. The new leaders of the movement would no longer feel compelled to work with or appease white people. Why bother? Who could blame them?

For their part, white folks were scared. They saw the violence of those nights as the signal to leave town. Cities were hemorrhaging white people for years but this was the final straw. The whites who respected and heeded Dr. King's message while he was alive, and there were more of them that you'd imagine, would follow the lead of those that didn't, off to the suburbs and beyond.

The racial divide that Dr. King tried to close, was blown wide open, and has remained that way ever since.

But the greatest tragedy of Dr. King's death in my opinion, was the loss of hope and faith, the loss of the Dream.

It's our faith that teaches us to treat others as we would be treated. Hope for the future makes children understand that in order to make something of themselves they have to respect education and stay in school. Dr. King's Dream encouraged us to accept the fact that in order to build a better tomorrow, we need to sacrifice today.

Martin Luther King's death, the other assassinations of the era, the Vietnam War, Watergate, 9/11, the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, and the current economic morass, have worn us down in ways we can't even comprehend. One thing is certain, they have filled us with doubt about ourselves and our institutions and have turned us into cynics.

Oscar Wilde told us that "a cynic is a man who knows the price of everything and the value of nothing." Since dreams, hope and faith are not commodities we can put a price tag on, they have little value for us in today's society. That is, until they're gone.

I alluded above to the notion that we don't believe much in ourselves anymore. In fact, many of our brothers and sisters unfortunately believe in nothing at all. The recent riots in England clearly illustrate this, young kids not much older than my ten year old son, in the streets, breaking windows, setting fires and looting, for no apparent reason other than boredom. This doesn't portend well for our future.

If anything good comes of the Martin Luther King Memorial maybe it will be this, perhaps the attention it will receive will spread this message around the world:

Don't be afraid to dream.