Nine Eleven

Today is an anniversary. Not a pleasant one. It is a tragic memory now known forever as NINE ELEVEN.

I was a practicing journalist in New York City in 2001. I had just rented a small pied-a-terre along the New Jersey side of the Hudson River. I was standing on a balcony overlooking the river and I watched the explosion as the first plane struck the World Trade Center tower.

I knew that day that this was a time of dying and time of heroes. It is the hero I want to acknowledge on this anniversary.

Heroes alive and heroes fallen. There are so many to count, so many noble deeds and selfless actions came from the World Trade Center tragedy.

There are men heroes and woman heroes. Plain people and professional people, many who gave their lives that others might live and still so many others who gave their time and sweat, all choosing service over self.

They were average people doing extraordinary things. These are the actions of greatness.

Over the past few years a few of the stories have come out of those men and women who were willing to give their lives in exchange for the simple, but profound gift of helping another.

That act is a choice of the heart and it inextricably binds the human spirit together.

We need heroes. Each generation needs them. Heroes help us tell our children and each other that we are good at heart and it is part of our nature to be Samaritans and to acknowledge we are all part of each other and all a part of All That Is.

Maybe if we tell it often enough, we’ll begin to think it and what people think, they become.