9/11 memorial by Tom Szilagyi

This was the view of the 9/11 memorial site I took from New Jersey, on the anniversary of September 11^th, this past year.    The absolute utter silence of the group around me spoke volumes of the view and the event itself.  To me, the image holds significant powers of emotion, confliction, and love.  As one of the last years of people old enough to remember 9/11, I can still see myself being dismissed early from school and watching the news broadcasts from home, ultimately seeing the north tower fall in real time.  These images, that will never leave me, should have given the country unity among the decency in humanity, but made Americans succumb to fear, a lesson forgotten from FDR.  As a result, 9/11 was the first time Americans were force to confront Islam, a religion that most have heard of only in the context of the three monotheistic religions.  Americans didn’t know what Islam represented and the complexity of the different sects.  Questions of terror flowed through Americans.  Are all Muslims hateful just like the attackers?  Am I safe from someone who appears Muslim? Are they going to attack the country again?  Many people called and enacted attacks on Islam, while others stated Islam is a religion of peace.  We saw this in our readings for our analysis of religion after 9/11, through Franklin Graham and the Council on American-Islamic Relations.  Both statements displayed our ignorance at the time, an ignorance that has seemed to have never faded.  While most sects of Islam are peaceful and well intentioned, Salafism is a fundamentalist sect that takes many beliefs, such as the strict implementation of sharia law.  However, some Americans associate Islam, as a whole, with a sect of Salafism known as the violent jihadist which has been around since the very late 80’s and early 90’s.   This conflict the country is still fighting needs hope and love that can be taken from this picture.  Yes, 9/11 was one of the darkest events in American history and displayed the horrible nature of humanity; however, it showed the great glow of love and action.  As John 15:13 says, “There is no greater love than to lay down one's life for one's friends.”  Certainly that great love existed that day when innocent people were risking their lives for others:  police officers, fire fighters and ordinary civilians.  There’s the story of the man in the red bandana, a banker in his mid-20’s, bring injured co-workers down from 80 floors up in the south tower.  With safety in his grasp, he decided to climb all the way up the building again and again.  He ultimately died when the towers fell, but many people credit him for saving their lives that day.  It is love like this, shown on that horrific day, that transcends religion, ethnicity and nationality.  It is love like this that lights up the darkness and beams its way to the heavens.