46th minute 8th hour 11th day

”Let every nation know, whether it wishes us well or ill, that we will pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe, in order to assure the survival nd success of Liberty” – President John F. Kennedy

Our minds and hearts can’t be as far as we are from the September 11 event. It was one of the horrible things happened to humanity. It makes you ask same question again and again: what kind of person or idea could’ve done such hideous thing. It is like stabbing an innocent and unarmed person from the back. That is what happened that very day. In history it is going to be remembered as one of the WWII, one of the Holocausts of 21st century.

Unenthusiastically we question ourselves:” What went wrong that we as a society allowed this to happen?” Osama bin Laden didn’t became who he is overnight. Just like Germany didn’t turn Hitler into a “butcher” at once. We thought we were tolerant enough to diversity in color, race and nationality. On the other hand we missed the ideology side of the matter. 21st century is going to witness the rise of the ideologies if not the conflicts of them.

While we were too busy by individualizing ourselves, on the other side of the world Evil was far advanced in mass recruiting his “faithful servants”. We were building blocks around us to be happy in our “little world”. They were multiplying and spreading like cockroaches in dark basement. We call them radicals or extremist, but you know what so we are. Like in everything else individualism can be extreme too. There is Russian saying that one is not a warrior in a battlefield. Thomas Friedman in his book The World Is Flat says:” When the world goes flat – and you are feeling flattened – reach for a shovel and dig inside yourself. Don’t try to build walls”

We don’t want to loose our “comfort zones”. As humanity didn’t we do the same mistake after WWI? By punishing Germans we opened the door for Hitler and all dramatic events that followed him.

Our represented governments spend tremendous money on public safety and homeland security. We are trying to control people’s mind and behavior, but there are not much done to heal them. Imagine government subsidized movies similar to The Nativity Story and The World Trade Center.

I think it is time for us to establish God’s presence in our hearts and minds. In that case who knows we may not need anymore hall monitoring, several hours of customs checking in airports and train stations.

During Afghan war in 1980’s, I wish if we taught them not how to hold a weapon, but how to see the most merciful and loving God. We used godless methods against godless Soviet Union. Then why are we so surprised by 9/11 event, Madrid Bombing and London Train Station terror.

As Francis Fukuyama said in his book The End of History: The decline of community life suggests that in the future, we risk becoming secure and self absorbed last men, devoid of spiritual (thymotic) striving for higher goals in our pursuit of private comforts. But the opposite danger exist as well, namely, that we will return to being first men engaged in bloody and pointless prestige battles, only this time with modern weapons. Indeed, the two problems are related to one another, for the absence of regular and constructive outlets for megalospirituality may simply lead to its later resurgence in the extreme and pathological form.