Four Years Later on 9/11

It's surreal harking back to four years ago. It feels like another lifetime. I have so much peace and love in my life today that I cannot recognize this person I suppose was me from four years ago.

2001 wasn't exactly a banner year for me. It was probably as low as I've ever been carried. (I'll save the rehashing for long time readers. Newbies, check out: "When's the Last Time You Tried to Pay the Rent with Love?")

When the planes hit the twin towers, it hardly registered through the fog of my own despair. Flames were burning. I was extinguished. Already spent. Numb. The only thing that truly filtered in - just a smidgeon - was the current of love that emanated in the aftermath of 9/11 across the country. The next spring grace entered my life and that year was one of the most joy-filled of my life. That spring/summer is eclipsed by the presence of peace I feel now.

Immediately after the tsunami I was in the throes of my own little world of suffering. There was this crushing bone-deep aloneness. A disconnect and abandonment from God or whatever I thought God was, from my friend, that stemmed from more than being stranded and wounded on foreign soil halfway across the world. In truth, I'd already felt detached long before the tidal wave swept through the shores of Thailand.

At a book reading (at Kepler's no less) someone in the audience asks Marc Ian Barasch, author of Field Notes on the Compassionate Life, if his own compassion awakened after a particular amount of success in his life. He laughs. Almost choking on the gutteral laugh. There is a long pause while he flashs back in time. From his earlier stance during the formal reading, I sense a palpable shift in countenance as if as his heart gear has engaged a notch further for an uphill surge.

No, he hasn't been particularly successful, he shares. He's been a cancer patient. He's been nearly homeless a few times. He remembers. A time when he was ill for a very protracted time. The friends came at first. He wasn't getting better. The visits waned.

A neighbor whom he'd always regarded as "overly pious and irritating" knocks at his door. He's come by with a cup of soup. Marc's voice cracks as he continues, "I broke down in sobs then. I'd been so lonely." That "kind act" pierced through. And the hundreds of kind acts that others have bestowed on him flooded him.

Marc punctuates his answer, "My suffering isn't special. Everyone here in the room has known it."

Be kind. Everyone is fighting a great battle. - Phyllo of Alexandria

I'm at an appreciate inquiry and facilitative leadership workshop yesterday. After explaining the positive-dwelling concept behind appreciative inquiry, the workshop instructor shifts gears: "We're going to consider now the suffering in the world." A ministry student in his forties objects, "Why would we want to do that?" A young college student pipes up, "Yes, how does that relate to being a good facilitator, a good leader?"

Although we still associate the walls we've erected with safety and comfort, we also begin to feel them as a restriction.  This claustrophobic situation is important for a warrior. It marks the beginning of longing for an alternative to our small, familiar world. We begin to look for ventilation. We want to dissolve the barriers between ourselves and others. - Pema Chodron, The Places That Scare You: A Guide to Fearlessness in Difficult Times

I think about being in the large ship anchored in the Andaman Sea headed for Phuket hospital with a cargo of the tsunami wounded. Including myself. No one speaks much.  I don't think it was only the language barrier.

My friend is far away physically. He is on the opposite end of the ship against a railing. I'd already distanced myself emotionally at the hotel at the topmost hill - the safe haven after the first wave hit us.

We land on the shores of Phuket hours later. Ambulances arrive one after another after another.

My friend comes to get me. Dragging me along hastily, or so it feels like. I cannot walk at normal speed because the leg has stiffened considerably while on the boat. "Let me go," I yank away.

They are out of ambulances by the time I plod across the plank.

Private citizens arrive in pickups. I sit against the window facing the night. A Thai man is sprawled out as if on a stretcher on the pickup bed. My friend is on the other side of the man sitting up sideways.

We are hurling through the streets so fast. It would be ironic to survive a tsunami only to be killed in a high-speed car accident.

The stranger is softly moaning in pain. Internal injuries, perhaps. I can tell he is trying to muffle his distress out of politeness. Or humbleness. And yet the cries come.

I reach out to pat his brow and run my hand through his black hair in a rythmic fashion much like a mother might smooth her baby's hair during a lullaby.

A lullaby sung by the moon. The moon is crisp white full lulling me above the black charcoal pastel of the high hills. White as a lotus flower bobbing out of the rotting mud. The night is so ignorantly beautiful it hurts.

My friend extends his hand and clasps the man's hand in his. The three of us ride for a long time. The swaying motion of my hand across his crown never reaches a crescendo. Steady sameness. Slowly the pangs of suffering resemble more of a cooing.

Everything is said in that near-silence. We are outside of our selves. And in that instant, all is right with the world.

Way of the Water-Hyacinth

Bobbing on the breeze blown waves
Bowing to the tide
Hyacinth rises and falls

Falling but not felled
By flotsam, twigs, leaves
She ducks, bobs, and weaves

Ducks, ducks by the score
Jolting, quacking and more
She spins through -

Spinning, swamped, slimed,  sunk
She rises, resolute
Still crowned by petals.

-  Zawgee, translated from Burmese by Lyn Aye (via Breathe mag July/Aug 2005)

tags: Hurricane Katrina 9-11 resiliency compassion | credits: Flickr photo by Scott Adams