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Across the wide swath of flaming maples, I glimpsed bloodied feet of the Choctaw, Muscogee, Chickasaw, Cherokees, and Seminole, five civilized tribes in the southeast, forced by our government to walk the Trail of Tears, between 1830 and 1850—their destination, the barren reservations in Oklahoma.
At the time, protesters lobbied, published, shouted out, lectured from pulpits and courtrooms, but the planters won. Cotton remained King, gobbling up nutrients from stolen lands, viewed as sacred by the tribes who had tended them. Such is our scarred history that greedily wants what it wants, but we are not alone.
The precedent of ethno-cleansing has fueled unspeakable atrocities throughout the world. With others, I cry, “Mercy!”
At 6:35 A.M., I awoke with this disconcerting dream:
After a long absence, I discover that my doctor has moved his office to a high-tech clinic in the city. As I follow a nurse to an examining room, I see a former friend sitting on the floor of another examining room, looking disgruntled, her shapely legs stretched before her upon the hardwood floor. My heart sank. I hoped she had not seen me.
This glimpse into my psyche reveals more of my shadow. My need to see my doctor suggests regaining control of my health rather than allow the continuing diminishment of my body under hospice supervision. I’m determined to fix myself—And only the best will do: a high-tech clinic in the city.
The former friend mirrors my stinginess of heart, resentments, whining and demanding and sulking behaviors, deeply entrenched in my psyche, still rooted within the recesses of my shadow, despite decades of Twelve Step work.
And my former way of handling conflict— I hoped she had not seen me. —was to flee the scene or ignore what had occurred. Such pretense had thwarted development.
The dream reminds me of the critical practice of emotional honesty, with God, myself, and others. I still have a terminal illness.
It was a brilliant Tuesday morning, September 11, 2001, and, sleepy-eyed, I met my friend at the airport for our flight to Gloucester, Massachusetts, for our annual retreat—Everything as usual, or so I thought.
Only airborne a short while, the intercom clicked on. “This is your Captain speaking—Air Traffic Control is delaying our arrival at Boston. Some difficulties, they’re having. We’ll keep you posted.” I buckled my seat-belt, intuiting that something was very wrong. My friend didn’t agree and our conversation about terrorism continued until interrupted.
It was the Captain again. “There’s been another change. Air Traffic Control directs us to land at the nearest airport. Since we’re closest to Indianapolis, that’s where will land. They’re expecting us, as well as other planes ordered to clear the skies.” Only while deplaning did the Captain inform us of the terrorist bombings in Manhattan.
Slowly, the ghoulish pieces of the nightmare begin to coalesce while listening to the car rental’s radio on the way to Gloucester: a series of suicide planes had crashed into and leveled the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center; another crashed into the side of the Pentagon; and still another, intended for the U. S. Capitol or The White House, crashed-landed in a field near Shanksville, Pennsylvania, thanks to Todd Beamer and other passengers who almost subdued their four hijackers.
Panic, fire, dense smoke, mangled and burnt bodies, shocking injuries, lingering deaths, families decimated, destruction of symbolic edifices, disruption of the economy and much more scarred America’s psyche—an emotional scarring it still bears, despite the media’s sanitized coverage, twenty years later.
Only later did Osama bin Laden, founder of the pan-Islamic militant organization, al-Qaeda, take responsibility for this atrocity, his choice of the date to avenge the September 11, 1683 Christian victory over the Turks at the battle of Vienna.
Prayer and Memorials help, but the scar of 9/11 remains: No one has forgiven anyone—the war continues.
Heart Whisperings 