Some Thoughts on the Two Towers and the Aftermath

Today we remember the terrorist attacks which destroyed the World Trade Center, and killed many innocent people.

It was a truly diabolical attack, carried out mercilessly.

I think we also need to reflect on how we responded, and continue to respond. I have some quotes which I think are relevant:

Thomas Jefferson
The care of human life and happiness, and not their destruction, is the first and only object of good government.

Benjamin Franklin
They who would give up an essential liberty for temporary security, deserve neither liberty or security

John Adams
There is danger from all men. The only maxim of a free government ought to be to trust no man living with power to endanger the public liberty.

Henry David Thoreau
Under a government which imprisons any unjustly, the true place for a just man is also a prison.

Franklin Delano Roosevelt
The only sure bulwark of continuing liberty is a government strong enough to protect the interests of the people, and a people strong enough and well enough informed to maintain its sovereign control over the government.

Eleanor Roosevelt
Hate and force cannot be in just a part of the world without having an effect on the rest of it.

David Kaczynski
We've got to take back the ideal of justice, we've got to take back this principle of human dignity. We've got to take it back from vengeance, from hatred, we've got to say: look, we're all in this together. We are human beings.

Martin Luther King Jr
We must develop and maintain the capacity to forgive. He who is devoid of the power to forgive is devoid of the power to love. There is some good in the worst of us and some evil in the best of us. When we discover this, we are less prone to hate our enemies.

Mohandas K Gandhi
What is obtained by love is retained for all time. What is obtained by hatred proves a burden in reality for it increases hatred.

Mohandas K Gandhi
The weak can never forgive. Forgiveness is the attribute of the strong.

Mohandas K Gandhi
Forgiveness is choosing to love. It is the first skill of self-giving love.

Albert Schweitzer
This is what gives me the fundamental principle of morality, namely, that good consists in maintaining, promoting, and enhancing life, and that destroying, injuring, and limiting life are evil.

Jonathan Swift
We have just enough religion to make us hate, but not enough to make us love one another.

William Blake
The glory of Christianity is to conquer by forgiveness.

Desmond Tutu
Without forgiveness, there's no future.

Matthew 5:44
But I say unto you, love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you...


These might seem like a bunch of random quotes, but they relate to my own thinking about the attacks, and our response. We, as a people responded, our government responded, both here and abroad.

We voluntarily gave the government more power, looking for security. (See the Benjamin Franklin and Franklin Delano Roosevelt quotes above, and think about the risks there.)

I think we need to evaluate what has been done, and decide if we have taken the best road, and if there might be a better way. We have tried hatred and violence, maybe we should try love and forgiveness.

Struggle Against the Darkness?

I overheard a conversation recently between two people who were discussing all the darkness in the world, and how it was necessary to struggle against the darkness unceasingly.

I spent some time thinking about what I overheard, and concluded that they were mistaken in their basic assumptions.

First of all, it seems they are focused on the darkness in the world, so they see it everywhere. And, they see it as something wrong with the world.

I believe that light and darkness are not two separate things, but two sides of the same coin. There is a saying, from Buddhism, I think: nothing is good or bad, but thinking makes it so. Which means we put our labels on things, and call them good and bad, or light and dark; what we label something is based on what we can see, not on any absolute truth. It is impossible for any of us to see the whole truth about anything, so our understanding is necessarily limited.

Please understand I am not offering a defense to justify wrong actions, I believe we all have an innate sense of right and wrong, and should strive to live up to our own highest ideals of right action. I am suggesting that we should not be too quick to judge light and dark, or good and evil. I am also suggesting that there is a cycle of light and dark, and that cycle is larger than humanity.

That cycle will continue progressing from light to dark and back again, no matter how we might struggle against it.

I am also not suggesting that we do nothing, and simply stand back and allow things we see as wrong to happen and make no effort to stop them. (This may sound like I am contradicting myself, but keep reading, it will be clearer.)

What I believe is that there is no reason to "struggle against the darkness." If you think about light and dark, there is no struggle. Darkness does not pass because anyone struggled against it. Darkness passes when someone brings a light into the darkness, no struggle is needed. (Better to light one candle than curse the darkness.)

So, I think the people I overheard were wrong because they were focused on the "darkness" and they wanted to struggle against it. A better approach would be to look for ways to bring more light into the world; everyone has a light, maybe now is the time to let it shine.

Here are some lines from an old Incredible String Band song:

"One light, light that is one
though the lamps be many..."