Roots and National Tragedy

Today is my 23rd birthday. Yesterday was September 11th, which meant two things for me: 1. our nation's day of remembrance; 2. my first ever root canal.

The root canal was actually surprisingly painless. My dentist, aside from being very good-looking, is also talented at what he does. haha. I don't even have any pain today. I guess that makes sense, because a root canal entails ripping all the living matter from the tooth--what's left to hurt?

As for remembering, I actually did most of my reflection on September 10th. I drove back to Austin after spending a weekend in Dallas, so I listened to NPR for a while, as Americans living abroad described what it was like as an American abroad after Sept. 11, 2001. None of them were living in the Middle East, so that perspective wasn't shared (though I think we can all imagine how that would be).

It is interesting that in all cases the Americans observed that the past 5 years have given foreign nations a more realistic vision of our country. We are no longer perfect nor impenetrable in their eyes. I'm glad that people's expectations have been lowered to some extent, because no nation is perfect, and I tend to endorse accepting reality as much as possible (however often I may fail to do so in my own life). Still, it is a little bit sad. I sometimes become a bit melodramatic in spirit, and I begin to compare our nation to the Roman Empire...and I imagine our inevitable decline. (By the way, decline is inevitable, regardless of whether you at least ostensibly stand for freedom, goodness, and justice. If there is to be an ever-lasting kingdom of God, I don't think the USA is it.) Our country may not be perfect, but it's still pretty good. My life here is excellent in so many ways, so I feel sad to think about people here one day (perhaps soon, perhaps long after we die) living in misery.

Of course, there are plenty of other people living in misery right now. So, if nations get any sort of karmic retribution, we'd better tend to those people to a greater degree than we do any kind of terrorist. Right?

Anyway, yesterday the extent of my reflection was to watch most of President Bush's address to the nation. I had all kinds of thoughts and feelings while watching him. To be honest, at first, I really liked what he was saying. His narrative makes sense when you hear it all on its own from start to finish, and I think it is reassuring to most people to find one clear story with one clear motive. A few minutes into the speech his tone began to bother me. He spoke in almost a monotone, and it occurred to me that he was of course reading his speech off a teleprompter. I don't judge him for this, because I know most people on TV do so. However, it just started to bother me that Bush made almost no effort to read with any kind of real feeling; rather he seemed to be droning with almost a hypnotic quality in his voice. I'm not crazy enough to think that he was actually trying to hypnotize anyone, but after a while this just really bothered me and made me suspicious. (I changed the channel so that I didn't have to watch the last few minutes.)

My reaction has me wondering about things. Of course I wonder about what is really going on over there: is it as simple as Bush says it is? Beyond that, I'm wondering about people. Do we all genuinely crave that kind of simple narrative as I asserted above? Even if we crave it, is there something inside that won't let us accept it? Or is that limited to certain generations or certain types of people? Is it necessary to select a simple narrative in order to take action? After all those of us who sit around pondering the complexeties are usually not the ones who actually take action. (Is that a valid assertion?)

Maybe this is too heavy a discussion for my birthday?