Like everyone, I was absolutely stunned on the morning of September 11, 2001. I heard the news on NPR as I was getting ready for the day, & I woke up my son so that we could listen together.
Because we don’t have TV, I am one of probably only a handful of U.S. people who didn’t see the televised images, only photos in the newspaper & online. Sometime in the past year or two I finally did see brief video footage, probably as part of a documentary. Up to then, not watching, just hearing & reflecting, was a sort of spiritual practice for me, a way that I said to myself, This is different, terrible—this is to be treated with reverence.
In the years since, my commitment to nonviolent resistance to injustice has deepened. In this way & in other ways I depart from the response taken by my government. I seek to follow a way taught by Jesus Christ & practiced by his earliest followers. Mohandas Gandhi & Martin Luther King Jr. are models for me. This kind of pacifism isn’t passive at all—it is active, & it engages one’s whole being. It involves putting oneself, one’s own life, on the line to stand for justice & help create alternatives to violence. Gandhi’s term for it, satyagraha, means “the pursuit of truth.”
Did you know that today is another holy anniversary? It’s the 100th anniversary of the first nonviolent action led by Gandhi, & it took place in South Africa. You can read about it here. A coalition in New York has organized nationwide screenings of the rereleased film Gandhi to mark the day.
