A Poem on 9-11-01
by Damian Nash

Dear friends:

On behalf of all who died today
I would like to make a difference:
I want to make the world a better place
For their loved ones and their children.

Tonight we lie restless in our beds
Our hearts and souls ache
As they try to stretch around
The incomprehensibly huge tragedy
That just crashed down on all of us
Delivered in passenger jets.

All of us are driven to know "why?"
Watching news reports, scanning Internet headlines
Looking for any clue that will make sense
Out of something so senseless
That will satisfy a deep, disturbing yearning
And fill a numb, empty place in our minds
Where the Trade Towers used to stand.

Here is one little part of the answer,
Please hear it, add to it, pass it along.

I send this with the kind of compassion
That appears briefly after a tragedy
As we all work together, as we give blood, food
Whatever we can offer
For others we have never met.

I mail this to you with the hope
That you will make something with these words
For the children and the loved ones
Of all the beautiful human beings
That perished today in the rubble and the flames.

As we sit in front of our television screens
Or newspapers, radio, the internet
Numbed, sickened, enraged, grieving
We have every reason as a nation
To strike back
To find those responsible,
To punish and destroy.

No one in the world would blame the United States
For avenging such a heinous act:
It is our right to revenge
And we certainly have the power.
The world is waiting and watching for our response.
We are the most powerful nation on earth
We are about to set an example
Of international relations in the new millenium.

In this moment
We face an opportunity
As never before in history
To change the way of the world
And put an end to this kind of tragedy
Forever.

To do this we must all open our eyes together
We must wake up from the nightmare
And bravely face our true enemy
The Beast who wants us to keep sleeping.

Our enemy is not a millionaire oil tycoon
A military dictator, a country, a religion, an ideology
Or this month's political scapegoat.

Our true enemy is the Cycle of Pain and Suffering
And all of us in America
Are facing the enemy today
In a way we have never faced it before.

Many of us are eager to avenge our suffering
By inflicting more pain on anyone presumed guilty
By feeding the flames, following carnage with carnage
Taking an eye for an eye, a head for a head.

In this way we win a battle and lose a war
While the true enemy of humanity,
The Beast that feeds on our pain and suffering,
Grows larger and stronger.

The people who carried out this incomprehensible act of terrorism
Must have already endured a level of suffering incomprehensible to us
A kind of pain that twisted the humanity out of their souls
And left them unable to resist a hideous, twisted plot.

Suffering loves to create more Suffering
And these men wanted us to glimpse the hell they lived in
In their neighborhoods, in their countries,
In the privacy of their tortured souls and minds.
So they passed the Beast from their shoulders to ours
By sacrificing their lives
And the lives of our loved ones

If we decide to hit the suffering back into their court
Do we win a battle and lose the war?

By temporarily satisfying our need for vengeance
By dealing out our own version of justice
Do we really restore the balance or just push the pendulum harder?
Do we improve the world for our children?
Or do we put them in line for the next retaliation?
The next escalation?
The next, larger, more hideous act of terrorism?
Do we expose those we love to the risk of something even worse?

When I look for any kind of solution, the only way I can see
That we can ever be truly victorious over terrorism
Is to discover and destroy the sources of terrorism:
Poverty, ignorance, oppression, injustice, disease and the absence of hope.
Let us work together to destroy its roots everywhere on the planet.
Starting in our own backyards.

On behalf of all who died today
So that they will not die in vain
I ask my friends and the leaders of the US
To ask a deeper kind of "why?"
To move beyond the posture of victim and outraged reaction
To adopt a conscious response that will banish this kind of horror
From the face of the planet
Forever.

Instead of asking "why?" to satisfy our hunger for answers
Let us ask that same question to mend what is broken in the world.
Instead of asking "who were these men?" to scapegoat and punish
Let us ask that same question to learn about the incomprehensible pain that
destroyed them.
Instead of looking for causes that we ultimately can't control and must fear
Let us look for the ways we contribute to the Cycle of Pain and Suffering
And have the courage to change what we can.

Why did these men blaming the US for their suffering?
Why did they target these buildings? What did they hope to accomplish?
Were they attempting to ease their own suffering, or the suffering of others
By taking such extreme, merciless methods?
Are they all completely insane,
or is there some morsel of truth that gave birth to their insane plot?

Only by asking these questions
And facing the answers with strength and humility
Can we ever escape the nightmare of suffering
That has haunted human history.

By seeing how our way of life promotes suffering elsewhere on the planet
And by choosing to act differently for our sake and theirs --
This is the way we can make sure that the children of these terrorists
Are freed from the nightmarish kind of world that produced their parents
And that drove them to such unthinkable levels of desperation.

When that happens,
When the US stands humbly among the other nations of the world
Committed to making life better for everyone, everywhere,
Using our freedom, knowledge and power for everyone's benefit,
Only then can the war on terrorism be won.

If we ever to evolve as a human race
We must learn to see our only real war as the war on suffering
And realize it can never be won with bombs, guns
Tighter security measures or hijacked airplanes --
With violence and a tighter fist suffering can only be perpetuated.

The only way to win this war,
The only way to stop the madness,
Is by listening, truly listening to others,
And especially those we see as enemies,
Asking how we are contributing to their suffering
And doing whatever we can do to alleviate each other's pain.

To win this war
Individuals must choose to fight suffering, not other people --
And so must and nations and corporations.

On behalf of all who died today
I would like to make a difference:
I want to make the world a better place
For their loved ones and their children.

Features
A Survivor's Story: 09-11-01 World Trade Center
Written by David Frank

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Some Thoughts about September 11
Written by Lynn of Idaho, U.S.A.

Ripples in the Pond...
Written by Donna, Austin, Texas

"So September 10th"
Written by Pat of Austin, Texas

A Day of Reckoning
Written by Nona Passalacqua, CCHT

Why I will not get out of bed....
Written by A.F. Firebird

A Poem on 9-11-01
Written by Damian Nash

Attack on America: A Poem
Written by Marilee S. Niehoff, Ph.D.

Parenting and Relationship
Helping a Child Manage Fears After a Traumatic Event
Written by Sidran Foundation

Spirit-to-Spirit
Today's Idea
Written by Marianne Williamson

Commentary for Sentient Beings
Written by Michael Benner, C.H.T.

A Letter from Deena Metzger

What Will Rule Our Hearts?

Health Share
"Fight, Flight, or Freeze" Reactions, Ongoing Stress and Health
Written by Darling Villena-Mata, Ph.D.

Watch Out for Emotional Reactions to Sept. 11th Disaster
Written by Jeanie Davis

Caring for Your Heart
Written by Institute of HeartMath

Vibrational Harmony: The Key to Healing and Creating Order Out of Chaos
Written by Beverly Nadler, C.H.T.

How Hypnotherapy Can Help
Written by Nona Passalacqua, C.C.H.T.

Meridian Therapies
Mind and Body Healing for the New Millenium
Written by The Association For Meridian Therapies

Tapas Acupressure Technique (TAT)
Written by Lakshmi Collins

For the Record
The Statue of Liberty
Written by Emma Lazarus

Definition of Freedom

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