By Heather Burke
I was a 13-year-old with no connections to the Twin Towers or the Pentagon. Tragedy had struck, and I had no idea what to do with it. I took my seat in eighth grade homeroom and watched as live footage of the second plane crash played across the TV screen. I watched the news that night and wondered how to pray for something so unreal.
The events of that day dramatically transformed our society. My formative years were spent in a post-9/11 environment. — 9/11 didn’t change my world; it made my world.
Was there ever a time when you did not arrive at the airport two hours early to catch a flight?
If you want to take a pocket knife, scissors or nail clippers on your trip, pack them in your checked luggage or donate them to airport security, because they are not getting on the plane with you.
Three-ounce bottles of liquid in plastic bags, computers with their individual bins, shoes on the belt — they must all go through the X-ray scanner before boarding the plane for your beach trip in Florida. That’s just how it is.
I guess they didn’t check your purse for weapons at a baseball game before 9/11.
The word terrorist became part of our everyday vocabulary. I don’t remember a time when every other news story was not about the fight against terrorism. The word has become so popular we even named a war after it.
“Terrorist” not only become popular, it also became Muslim. Every TV cop show has investigated at least two terrorist attacks that include a Muslim in the suspect list.
Not all terrorists are Muslim, of course, and not all Muslims are Middle Eastern. There are over 1 billion Muslims who live day to day praying for peace in our world. More Muslims live in Russia than in Jordan and Libya combined. France’s population is nearly 6 percent Islamic. Our own Muslim population approaches 2.4 million.
I know these facts, and yet my knee-jerk reaction is to picture a Middle Eastern person when I think of Islam or terrorism. This is a tragic product of growing up in a post-9/11 world.
Growing up in any era involves tragedy of some kind. I once heard that life is a terrible thing to happen to a person, and it is. But life happens to all of us. It is what we choose to do with our allotted time that defines us.
My generation has chosen to define itself by tolerance. My generation has put aside specific doctrine for a moment and found enough common ground in the belief in an Almighty. While we hold different beliefs about who this Almighty is, we respect those differences. Our tolerance has opened our eyes to the created beauty in each other.
My friend Yasmine was my first experience of created beauty in a person of different faith. I met Yasmine at lunch on my first day of high school. I expected to eat in silent solitude when Yasmine sat down in front of me and introduced herself. Although a Muslim, I saw a glimpse of Christ in her as she transformed my loneliness and made me a friend.
As we mourn the 10th anniversary of a tragedy born of hatred, intolerance and misunderstanding, let us look with new eyes on those who believe differently. Let us recognize a glimpse of the Creator in them and pray, just as Jesus prayed, for those who have been our enemies.