Today, my memories of September 11, 2001, when the world froze and I stood paralyzed as horrific images of people jumping from the Towers repeated and repeated and repeated, are mixed up with memories of other days when time stopped — the deaths of each of my parents, my brother, selling off my dad’s cattle, days that closed one chapter of my life and initiated another, whether I knew it or not.
In the past, I watched landscaping crews saw limbs off of trees where birds were nesting in the spring and early summer. I thought I knew how those hysterical creatures felt as their homes and offspring tumbled to the ground. But 2020 has shown me I didn’t, I couldn’t, watching safely from the ground.
Today, I see images of cataclysm on a Biblical scale — the California fires and melting ice caps, human-induced tragedies, unintended consequences of — let’s call a spade a spade — our greed and ambition. I think of the lives destroyed and the unimaginable suffering of those beautiful lands and the wildlife trapped by fast-moving flames and melting ice.
None of us know what will follow. Have we learned from our mistakes? I wish I could say, “Yes, absolutely!” But that’s yet to be seen.
So here, on this day, I’m offering a prayer that we rise above our prejudice, greed and hate to preserve what we love, and move forward to a future that honors our best selves.