Creating Community Out of Chaos:
A bulletin board for the larger UU community
in the wake of the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks
on the United States of America

Read submissions from:
    September  |  13^th  |  14  |  15  |  16  |  17  |  18  |  19-23 |  24-30  |
    October:     |  1^st-15^th |
or the most recent responses below:

Contribution:
Response to September 11, in memory of my mother, Valerie Joan Hanna who died on the 97th floor of Tower One, September 11, 2001
 
 About Valerie
 By Lydia Robertson
 
 She taught we children moral & polite behavior & table manners. She encouraged us to learn respect for each other & to talk about our anger rather than to fight & hit. It was a hard lesson. Hitting is so much easier than cooling off & sometimes the other little brat-full sibling seemed so deserving, so deceitful.
 
 
 She spoke about the greatness of our country and she also spoke about policies, many policies she didn’t like. She wanted civil rights and equal right for ALL Americans and the vote for all Americans. Although she was a democrat, she would always drive anyone who needed to the polls. I remember sitting in the "way back" of the VW microbus and hearing an old bird say, "Why are you doing this? I know you are a democrat and I am a conservative republican." He called her a fool, but she said, "I don’t care how you vote, only that you do vote"
 
 
 She saw a need she could fill and simply did it. She read that teenaged boys were impossible to place in foster homes. She took in teenaged boys. There is no sure count as to how many children actually came to live in her home; I lost count around 17. And she made each of us feel important.
 
 
 Terrorism and the Community Response
 
 
 My city, my community, my friends and my family pulled together BEFORE this tragedy and now even more so. We have always been a great city. Many outside may not have known it or understood that before. But the rest of the country & the world are finding it out. We are diverse & colorful. We are a city of the world.
 
 
 The world was wounded when the trade center was hit. It is but a flesh wound in the grand scheme of things. I lost my mother, but if her murder can bring the world together the way it has brought this city and countless other places across this country and the world together, we will be better for it. I can be at peace knowing my mother died this way.
 
 
 As I looked down at my 7 year old’s toothless smile it occurred to me that our front teeth have been knocked out and with them our innocence & naivete.
 
 
 We are growing up. We have had a terrible loss but we can learn why so many are angry with us. We cannot ignore the world any more. If a small group of angry, sick fascists, can blow up a building in Oklahoma city and drive 767s into the world trade center we must begin to face and educate our selves as to why. These fascists take misguided American foreign policy & twist it into their own tool against us. It is important what we do next. We must not strike out in anger & for revenge. We must wait, cool down, think.
 
 
 These men did not commit suicide against some American foreign policy. They WANT war with America. They WANT America to bomb Afghanistan into a dustier hell then it already is. They anticipate that, because, to them Afghani lives are unimportant; the Taliban makes that clear in its policies toward women among others.
 
 
 No, what Osama Bin Laden & those like him want is to create a new generation of young men willing to die for their cause. And what makes young men more riled up than if their innocent families are bombed. If we play into their hands, if we bomb Afghanistan and there are heavy civilian casualties, then we are giving them the army of young terrorists they need. These men are no more Muslims than McViegh was Christian. Do not look at their faith for answers as to why this was done. It has nothing to do with it. Islam and Muslims are not the enemy. Christians and Christianity is not the enemy. Jews and Judaism is not the enemy. The enemy is the fascist who uses these faiths to disguise their true intentions. Chaos, power, absolute rule.
 
 
 Do not use this tragedy as an excuse to hurt your neighbor, who may look Arab or dress as you may think and Arab might.
 
 
 My mother would have us find another way to vent. Give blood to the Red Cross, but better yet, give platelets, twice a month for a year. Donate your time to something you would like to see made better. Give money to The Valerie Hanna/Sept. 11 Fund to help support research against biotechnology weapons and the terrible naturally occurring viruses that kill so effectively for which we have yet no antidote. (For more information contact Lydia at "Lydilove@onebox.com" or University of Texas, Medical Branch: UTMB Valerie Hanna/September 11th Fund)
 
 
 Let us turn this into something positive in the name of my mom and all the others who died or gave their lives.
 
 
Lydia J Robertson Lydilove@onebox.com
Mon Feb 11 15:46:12 EST 2002

Contribution:
I'm thinking of those of you and many others who have no faces who have lost someone/s or are missing someone/s. Nancy
 
Nancy rnmontrn@willinet
Thu Nov 8 18:02:31 EST 2001

Contribution:
I guess I am looking for solace and comfort in this church. And I'm having a hard time finding it.
 
 We are very possibly facing our ultimate destruction via biological or nuclear means--by a group of people who consider all non-Muslims infidels and worthy of destruction. I believe the Qu-ran or Koran, or whatever it is, states this.
 
 This destructive rage is directed at us by people who have failed societies and aren't able to provide their people with basic living needs. By dictators in those societies who deflect criticism of their own failures to provide by funneling rage on the street to scapegoats: Israel and the United States. We give Egypt foreign aid to the tune of two billion dollars a year, and yet their government-controlled press allows daily incendiary anti-U.S. rantings. And this goes on for decades. This is the pablum little children are raised on. No wonder the insane hatred of us.
 
 There is a feeling of Arab humiliation. Osama Bin Laden says the United States has been humiliating them for the last eighty years. I suppose a good part of that humiliation comes not from what we have done to them but what they have been unable to do for themselves: to achieve a European and American standard of living. So, for sure, envy is also behind these attacks on us. I heard that terrorists were overheard saying, "Watch the New York yuppies die." That said, of course, as the twin towers came down. Revealing words. Jealousy of their yuppiness. And I have heard it said that that in part is what behind the Muslim hatred of Israel, their modern, yuppie, New York lifestyle. It has been said that Israel has made a success out of the same desert that the Arabs have been unable to. And that may be galling.
 
 In the New Yorker I have read that the U.S. attack may have been a maneuver of Osama Bin Laden's to foment civil wars in Muslim countries in order to overthrow "more moderate" governments there and replace them with radical Muslim states. Then his Medieval Islamic view of the world could be freely imposed on the entire Muslim world, a pan-Islam style of Taliban-enforced morality.
 
 And yet in my home church and on this web site self-blame seems to prevail. Anguished appraisals of just where we might have gone wrong. And the espousing of nonviolence in the face of our possible imminent destruction. That was the advice that Gandhi gave to the Jews facing the concentration camps, just to go peacefully as a means of resistance! As one of our local newspaper columnists stated, (one whose conservative views usually drive me crazy) the pacifists say war never accomplished anything, World War II notwithstanding!
 
 I expect this e-mail will meet with outraged responses, but I didn't invent these thoughts. These are just what I've culled from reading Newsweek, the New Yorker, etc.
 
 It's not that I'm espousing violence either. But I also don't say it would never have a place. The truth is no one really knows what to do to stop all of this. But it sure does seem that leaving Osama Bin Laden and Saddam Hussein to their own devices over the last ten years wasn't a good idea, knowing full well what they were doing, with their mobilizing and training of thousands of terrorists and development of weapons of mass destruction. Look what that has wrought.
 
 I want from my church more consolation when we could hardly need it more and less ill-directed blaming. Blameless we are not, but, please, let's not gloss over pull-out-all-the-stops Islamic brutality and rage, that more than anything else arises from their failed states.
Judy Gail purplishpansies@yahoo.com
Mon Nov 5 09:26:07 EST 2001

Contribution:
Is there any room at all in the UUA for people such as myself who believe that military action is sometimes necessary in a complex and messy world, particularly when dealing with someone like Bin Laden and others who would continue to seek harm against us regardless of whether we revised our foreign policy to make it more just and humane?
Robert Carter carterbob1@excite.com
Mon Oct 29 08:48:45 EST 2001

Contribution:
I believe that as time passes our Faith will learn to look into the face of hatred, and become more and more comfortable with that visage, and so betray all of our principles
joel slater salome2us@yahoo.com
Mon Oct 22 07:58:18 EDT 2001

Contribution:
Life's ever changing forces deeply remind me of how daily
 existence exists with experiences shared, interpreted, and differentiated
 often in the same moment. At such a horrific time, I once again feel the
 century old struggle over war and peace, power, and what are we all
 searching for during our time on this earth. This is a complex situation,
 yet as a Taoist would say, "it is in the complexity that there is
 simplicity." This is by no means an effort to underestimate the impact of
 such a horrific event. It is rather to ask some basic thoughts. As Robert
 Fulgulm said, "All I ever learned I learned in Kindergarten." It is in
 these statements that I seek to find healing words from the pain, gentle
 thoughts to embrace the next day, and a strong sense of purpose to look
 towards the future.

 It is in the complexity that there is simplicity. This terrorist attack
 was deliberate with terrorists who spent significant time understanding,
 studying, learning, observing, and watching the people and systems of
 behavior within the United States culture. These terrorists on September
 11 led a guerrilla attack while escalating an unprecedented sense of fear
 amongst people in the United States and abroad. They boarded the planes.
 No one was able to detect any unusual, personality characteristics, and
 convinced many that this would be a hijacking with the end being some sort
 of ransom money. The terrorists had box knifes and razors. The United
 States spends so much money on military operations and the like, and these
 terrorists came on board with box knifes which resulted in horrific pain,
 damage, and loss. On one end -- the missiles, the guns, and warplanes, and
 on the other -- the box knife.

 This last sentence makes me real nervous inside because I feel that they
 have almost been studying and predicting the United States moves, and then
 as if to say, "Do not underestimate our sense of power. To me this first
 was a deliberate, psychological attach which manifested itself in massive
 destruction and loss of human lives.

 As we slowly approach each new day, I feel as individuals and together as
 groups we need to rebuild our safety within ourselves and together in
 groups. We are told that it is a global issue, yet at the sametime it is
 an individual issue. It is global and individual at one and the same
 moment. We need to secure our global security yet we also have to reclaim
 our sense of personal safety, boundary, space, respect, and support
 ourselves in strength and determination.

 I feel very deeply that this issue of safety, boundaries, respect for
 ourselves and one another is a substantial part of this situation. Which
 brings to me the issue of education.

 In this weeks ahead my hopes are that buildings will take the time to have
 fire/emergency drills, to check their First Aid Kit, to put the emergency
 numbers of Terrorist Hotline Numbers in a visible space, and to take the
 time to notice who walks in the halls without quickly walking by.

 I hope that as a community we continue to look at the role of education.
 The United States needs an "Amnesty International" approach to track and
 have people provide testimonials to potential terrorists, threats, and
 terrorists. Education brings knowledge, power, awareness, and action.

 The essence of life and desire for survival rests deeply inside us from
 millions of years of evolution. We are blessed with multi-sensory systems
 of thought, body, mind, spirit, and soul. This is our root. This root
 will provide us guidance and support. Let's call on this root. This root
 has been evolving for millions of years; let's claim and know our own
 power during this incredibly challenging time.

Carolyn Murphy cfmgreen@hotmail.com
Sun Oct 21 10:51:09 EDT 2001