Rage becomes her

From 9/12/2018

17.

I’m faced with the same gut-wrenching feeling every year at this time. The endless heartbreak and grief for an ordinary father who became and extraordinary hero when he he ran into those buildings when everyone else was running out. But I also hold the inconsolable outrage at a government that exploited his sacrifice for an agenda of fear and domination that has taken millions of innocent lives since (that’s right, millions). Some say that is the cost of our freedom. I say that is the price of our fear.

I wrestle with those feelings every year. Because if we really want to heal from these wounds, we need to be willing to face the whole truth and nothing but the truth. I talked about this in my TEDx talk “Reimagining Citizenship”:

Every year, on that day, we gather together and we vow to never forget. But are we really remembering, when we don’t tell the whole story? The one that includes the suffering of so many who have been persecuted since that day? And am i truly honoring the memory of the man who raised me, who demonstrated a love for his neighbors every day of his life — he didn’t discriminate between who gets to be saved and who doesn’t. He ran into that tower for all of us.

Ruby Sales’ wisdom reminds us that “we have to begin to have a conversation that incorporates a vision of love with a vision of outrage”. It’s not a binary. We can live in love and outrage at the same time. For the sake of justice. For the sake of all of us.

That is what this #WELLREAD is all about.

-Kerri

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