Monday, September 28, 2009

To live in fear or not

I work in the city – no, not NY or Chicago or San Francisco, but Los Angeles. It’s beautiful this morning, just past dawn. The sky is actually sky blue, nary a cloud to mar it’s smooth expanse. Humanity’s endeavors to reach the heavens through sky-scraping office buildings make a quilt-like mosaic to keep my mind and eyes entertained as I follow the river of cars downstream into the city’s heartland.

I notice a large red-nosed jet in the distance, another miraculous invention of ingenuity (even if not quite so scientific baffling as honeybees flying). I am bemused by the view, sipping my coffee as I traverse the freeway with my fellow commuters.

But, this is September 2009. Now the red-nose of the jet seems a bit off, perhaps even macabre. And the plane is banking…is it circling in preparation to land in our arid dessert or is it just taking off and circling to head eastward to greener lands? Or, my heart leaping and respiration rate rising, is it heading for one of the financial towers? Maybe even the old “burning inferno” building that I call my weekday home? Or is my imagination reaching into that spot in the back of my brain that recalls another beautiful September morn in 2001?

The events of September 11, 2001 changed the world in many ways:

§ Good: many of us have made conscious decisions to live more fully in the moment and embody our values by deepening our ties to kith, kin and community.

§ Bad (IMHO): increased vigilante-ism, fear-mongering diatribes overrunning the airwaves, governmental spying on private citizens, increased hatred spewed at immigrants (as though we don’t live in a land of immigrants who killed off most of the first peoples without remorse).

§ Ugly: the way our innocence balloon has been popped by the needle of fear, changing a beautiful morning moment to one now tinged with apprehension.

I finish my commute, and take the three elevators to my home-away-from-home-sweet-home-cubicle. I read my email, a mixture of business, political updates and oh joy! some updates from friends who are coming to town next week.

I regain my equanimity, and vow, once again, to not live in fear.

May it be so, blessed be, amen, Namaste.