As you know it's been my suggestion that we should combat the hate and hypocrisy in the world by making a day marred by tragedy one of peace and kindness. It's a hippie move and I'll totally cop to that, but I do believe that it's our duty and responsibility to honor the past by giving new life to the future.
It's really heartening to me to see people take this idea and run with it. It has been like tossing a pebble into a pond and watching the ripples roll out as far as the eye can see. Even farther, perhaps, than I had originally thought possible. I created a Facebook event to invite people to participate in their own way and in their own town, figuring this would be a great way to have the event have some sort of impact.
I'm not threatening to burn the Quran so I'm not getting a whole lot of media attention with this thing... YET. Just wait till next year... because I will be doing this again with a lot more advance warning.
But I'm doing what I can. So far over 140 people (friends and mostly friends of friends) have committed to the idea. Surprisingly, 42 have declined. I say surprisingly because given the fact this event is free - it costs nothing more than a kindness - and it can be celebrated anywhere I figured it would be a no brainer to say yes.
Especially since I figured no one would have a problem with just committing a day to being nice.
But apparently 42 people have decided, for whatever reason, to opt out of it.
It confuses me slightly.
Some people have come back and said, "Shouldn't we be nice *every* day?" as if I had at all suggested that we shouldn't extend this kindness beyond the perimeters of 9/11. In fact, I expect that you will be so emotionally rewarded for the actions of tomorrow you will have to keep it going. Peace, like conflict, is perpetual.
Like I was saying earlier - it's like dropping a pebble into a pond.
I'm not suggesting we NOT be nice every other day of the year, but EXTRA nice on 9/11.
Another response I got was a lady who said she would not be participating because she would be in mourning. The response confused me; have we really become that emotionally crippled as a country that we cannot multi-task sadness and action at the same time? Like I responded to her, I've lost dear people in my life (an anniversary of which is coming up on 9/13, actually), and I understand that even as the years pass the ache can feel very fresh on these days that recall such tragedy.
But if we can get up out of bed, we can be nice. If we can take a shower, brush our teeth, we can be nice. If we can head out the door and go log in four, eight, six, ten hours on a job, we can be nice.
I think this response is probably the key reason we have lost that momentum we had in those dark hours that passed after the planes hit the towers in NYC that early September morning nine years ago.
When it happened we were so eager to do anything we could to help, anything we could to reach out, anything we could to find peace in the chaos.
Since then we've delegated 9/11 to some sacred tombstone as if nothing else can touch it, and in doing so have lost what made the hours that followed so miraculous.
We can mourn for what was lost that day, because we lost a lot. Even if you weren't in NYC, DC or PA, you lost something as an American that has been hard as hell to reclaim - if it ever can be.
We may never get it back.
But that doesn't mean we can't make things *better*.
To honor those lives lost, celebrate the lives that are still here.
And all I'm suggesting that you do is just be a little nicer and more compassionate, more considerate, to accomplish this.
Another response was, "well THEY won't be nice to us", as if that was ever excuse enough not to be a good person. I almost feel like I'm talking to a child when someone says something like this.
So because someone else hates you, that's reason enough for you to be meaner to the world at large?
How in the world does that make sense?
Especially since that's how we get a 9/11 in the first place.
You're not kind because OTHER people are kind. You're kind because it's the right thing to do.
In fact, that's the only way to have any honor at all.
So... you don't have to accept the invitation to be nice - that is certainly your choice.
But I hope that by all we're doing with 9/11: International Nice Day plants a seed in your head that the universe we live in is reciprocal. What you send out is what you get back.
Let's make it good.
0 comments:
Post a Comment