It is hard to believe that 7 years have passed away since this fateful day. I remember hearing about the attack in our ballroom team rehearsal. Lee walks in and says that a crazy pilot crashed his plane into the WTC building. I remember thinking that was weird that a little plane was flying anywhere close to the towers but didn't think much of it at the time. That was around 7:00 am. By the end of rehearsal at 9:00 am there was full media coverage on every available TV on BYU campus! It was a tragic day. A lot has been said and done in these 7 years since then. I don't know that we, as a society, have learned anything from it yet.We've gone to war, gone into debt, swung the political pendulum, but have we figured anything out about ourselves. What really got us into this mess and are we really doing the right things to get us back out. While the newspapers, radios and TVs spend a lot of air time and space relating to this event and its aftermath, we haven't spent much time trying to fix the problem that got us so disliked in the first place. We have created patriots and soldiers but are we any nicer to the world community? Are we most honest in our daily activities, more concerned for the welfare of others, or anything that would suggest that we're not just thinking about ourselves all the time and our petty concerns?
I'm sure there have been some who have changed for the better. But it seems to me that our country as a whole is still moving along much as it was prior to these attacks. In general, it doesn't seem to me that there has been any learning from our past (mistakes) to make a better future. And if that is truly the case then we're doomed to repeat those mistakes again and in this day and age the consequences seem to just get bigger.
Hopefully with our global neighborhood we can begin to realize that those people in those other countries are people just like ourselves. They have similar hopes and dreams, trials and disappointments. But ultimately they just want to be happy. I certainly hope that I can be one of those friendly neighbors who will reach out to the next guy/gal I meet.
(picture from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/September_11,_2001_attacks)
