May Your Strength Give Us Strength to Walk Into the Fire

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This isn’t the best week in the US to put out a non-political non-election-related blog post. Who’s going to read such a thing? There’s more compelling competition for our attention this week than most other times in recent memory.

There was one other time when we were so collectively rapt — September 11, 2001. But it was vastly different.

For one, there was no competition for our attention. The news media seemed to be in a concerted effort to inform us of what was happening because the country was on the same mission — to make it through. We were a collective, a unified people feeling similar things about the same subject. We put differences aside and acted as one — shocked, devastated, supportive, and eager to help in any way we could. Those who prayed, prayed. Those who had extra to give, contributed. Those who normally blamed or ranted, held back in the name of respect. Further, we all spoke in awe about one particular thing — 

The firefighters who willingly entered those Twin Towers to help others in a time of utter terror.

History will never know whether those first responders went into the stairwells, strapped with their heavy gear, the top of the building burning to smithereens, thinking to themselves, “I’m willing to help half of the people in this building — the ones who agree with my opinions on life and society. The rest — too bad. To hell with them.”

But history would be the biggest fool to think a thought like this could cross anyone’s mind in a situation like that in any possible Universe.

Is history a fool? Are we?

I think we can love each other with our lives if the situation calls for it. I doubt we’d have to train as a first responder. I believe this is simply who we are.

I don’t base this on a dream. I base it on the evolution of our species and our need for social cooperation.

Have you heard Bruce Springsteen’s heart-wrenching song, “Into The Fire”? If you haven’t, I hesitate to suggest it to you. It will bring you to your knees for the next ten years. It is devastation put to sound and word. It is guitar and voice working to rip your heart into pieces and leave them in a pile on the ground.

But it’s also goodness and light, hope and beauty. It’s a story about those people who gave their lives willingly to help other human beings. Will we ever be able to thank those awe-inspiring souls?

I worry we won’t if we never grow back together the way we were in the aftermath of that terrifying day in our history. I worry their legacy will be an oddity floating alone above our decline into separation, loathing, and disgust with each other. As I see it, we trample their memory because we don’t try to understand each other. I wish this wasn’t how it was. It makes me sad and hopeless.

But not for long. I look at those firefighters and the hope starts to grow back because I notice one thing that comes through so loudly and repeatedly in Springsteen’s song.

May your strength give us strength

May your faith give us faith

May your hope give us hope

May your love give us love

The whole world watched their TVs along with us on 9/11. It was the most compelling story at that time. What they saw in the aftermath was an incredible thing: America came together. I think knowing that those first responders went into the fire that day, went a long way in our unification. Here were fellow Americans — fellow humans — who made the unthinkable outreach. They risked their lives to save others. They not only saved others — or tried to — they did it indiscriminately. They did it because it was the right thing to do according to their training and mission.

Have we lost our mission as a society? Did we forget what this all was supposed to be about?

They say catastrophes render a group unified. After 9/11, we all wanted to be part of the effort to move forward from it. We knew we were a group of wildly different people, but that didn’t deter us. It made us stronger. It made us insanely proud. It made us feel special because we knew America was a group of endless kinds of people and we were one because of that.

Am I pie in the sky? Naïve? In less kind terms — dumb? How could I be dumb if we’ve achieved unity before? We did it during war and a terror attack. When we are being attacked, we huddle together like homo sapiens will. Some of us give our lives to fight the danger. Some of us devote ourselves to serving at home. Some of us give our resources. Some speak the word of unity and hope as reminders and encouragement to keep the faith.

We’re not doing this now, but we’re under attack — from each other. It feels nothing like it should feel, like it could feel.

And each day feels like the saddest day.

I never say hard things like this unless I know my logic is sound. Deep down, we all want to feel bilateral and cooperative. Deep down, we all want to be good and giving. Deep down we all want to die knowing we lived with love instead of righteousness. To my mind, those two are mutually exclusive. You can’t love if you’re sure you’re always right. Love is wisdom in the face of the thirst to be all-knowing. In this Universe, there is no such thing.

The onus lies in us today and each day to come. We need to go into this fire. Societal stability is the only thing that keeps a society together. The only thing.

I rode a small shuttle bus the other day to my nephew’s regatta. Because the bus was higher than a car, you could see the colorful, autumn forest fly by us on both sides through the large windows. No road, just trees. There was a little boy in the back of the shuttle who shouted to his dad once the bus started moving fast.

“Daddy! I feel like I’m flying! I’m not really flying, but I’m dreaming I’m flying!”

Me, too, kiddo. I’m dreaming I’m flying — in a flock of others, and landing together as one, then waking from the dream to discover it wasn’t a dream.

It was true.

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Thinking of you, friends. Be well.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OM6lw40VPLg