A new global view—how my life changed after 9/11

On September 11, 2001, I was 2,000 miles from my New York City home, visiting my brother in Colorado. He woke me that morning to tell me there had been a terrorist attack on New York and the Pentagon. I was terrified: my five-year-old daughter was back home with my husband.

I prayed as best I could. And I was incredibly relieved, though still shaky, when my husband was finally able to call two hours later to let me know they were both safe.

Like the lives of many people around the globe, my life changed forever that day. I’ve had to confront terror, along with everyone else, and some of my friends say they still live with intermittent fear.

One day, I heard a very loud noise from the power plant near my apartment—my first thought was “terrorism.” Another time, as I walked across the Brooklyn Bridge on a bitterly cold winter day, I pondered what would happen if the bridge were attacked. I’d never thought about such things before the World Trade Center was destroyed.

Yet these events, while momentarily disturbing, don’t come close to describing an even more important and fundamental change that took place in my life on September 11th.

I’d tried to keep up with world events. But I have to admit that, for the most part, the news rarely touched my heart. I'd read a newspaper article or see a television report and then get back to my personal concerns.

My prayers for the world and its inhabitants were cursory. I put a lot more energy into my prayers for my family and myself. It’s not that I didn’t care about other people; I just felt I needed to get my own life in order before I’d be able to help others effectively.

September 11th changed all that. I realized that my troubles—whether all-consuming, such as my troubled marriage, or less so, such as periodic headaches, unwanted weight, money worries—wouldn’t matter if I or someone I loved were killed in an act of terrorism. I got a good dose of perspective—and fast.

My prayers immediately became less self-centered and much closer to living the second commandment that Christ Jesus gave to us, “Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself.” I finally understood how important this commandment is, and I couldn’t ignore it any longer.

From that day on, I have genuinely loved my fellow humans, terrorists included. I don’t condone the actions of the terrorists or the beliefs that allow them to carry out attacks on innocent people, but I’ve found that hate in any form is incredibly destructive, even when it seems justified. And if there was ever a time hate seemed justified, it was in the wake of the terrorist attacks.

More than 100 years ago, Mary Baker Eddy, the Discoverer and Founder of Christian Science, wrote something about hate and its indulgence that still holds true today: “The moral abandon of hating even one's enemies excludes goodness. Hate is a moral idiocy let loose for one's own destruction. Unless withstood, the heat of hate burns the wheat, spares the tares, and sends forth a mental miasma fatal to health, happiness, and the morals of mankind,—and all this only to satiate its loathing of love and its revenge on the patience, silence, and lives of saints” (The First Church of Christ, Scientist, and Miscellany, p. 249 ).

I don’t want to invite moral idiocy into my life. My health, happiness, and morals are too dear to me. But it still takes work to love someone who has committed such horrors. For me, one step is to know that underneath all the hate and ugliness, that individual really is spiritual, the child of God.

The terrorist’s actions obviously don’t reflect that, but as a student of Christian Science, I’ve learned how important it is to look beyond what’s presented to me in the human realm.

Science and Health includes this statement: “Jesus beheld in Science the perfect man, who appeared to him where sinning mortal man appears to mortals. In this perfect man the Saviour saw God's own likeness, and this correct view of man healed the sick.” It heals the morally sick and sinning, too.

When I got back to New York, my daughter Lucia talked about the men who hated us so much that they flew planes into our buildings to kill us. I scooped her into my arms and told her that I felt sorry for the men who hijacked the planes.

She looked surprised. I was kind of surprised, too, but I really felt that way. I explained that those men had been blinded by religious zealousness, or the influence of charismatic leaders, or both.

I told her that they apparently thought they were doing God’s work, but I knew that they couldn’t possibly be carrying out His plan because God doesn’t operate through terror. I said that it’s easy to tell whether or not God’s talking to us, because anything that hurts any of Her children couldn’t be an idea from divine Love.

Lucia listened to me intently, trusting that her mom would tell her the truth. Love and compassion replaced her anxiety, and I could see she was free from fear. She has never again seemed afraid of terrorism, even though it’s impossible to shield a New York kid from talk about security.

The well-known antidote to hate is love, and the selfless love described in this poem by Mary Baker Eddy has a powerful effect, wherever it’s practiced:

My prayer, some daily good to do
      To Thine, for Thee;
An offering pure of Love, whereto
      God leadeth me.
(Christian Science Hymnal, No. 253 )

It seems to me that the most useful prayer is a prayer to help and support all of God's children. These days, I pray more consistently to recognize the God-given protection that each one of my brothers and sisters throughout the world has every single moment. God’s protection doesn't come to us only when we are in a crisis or severe danger. It’s built into our very being. We are protected because we are the sons and daughters of God, designed to be fearless and strong.

I know I have a way to go before I fully grasp what is involved in achieving this goal. Still, I trust that the grace of God is with all of us. And as we rely increasingly on our Father-Mother for help, we will overcome evil with good.

And I’ve found that as I’ve expanded my prayers to help others, solutions to my own problems have come more rapidly. Some of my biggest problems no longer exist, and as I work toward healing on the other issues, I find they’re not as all-consuming as they once were. I’m grateful for every healing, no matter how small, because each reaffirms to me God’s ever-present law of good.

These days, I genuinely care about news from Iraq and other places around the world. I can see the global connection, and I know that what happens in other countries has an effect on what happens in my own country. I relate to people struggling in Pakistan and China, in African nations, and everywhere else, including my own backyard, because I know they’re just like me. They have loved ones whom they want to keep safe.

I want to see them safe too, and I know that my best efforts start with unselfed prayer.

Love for all mankind:

Science and Health

King James Bible