A call for healing

I was once told that funerals are not for the dead, but rather for the living. I believe this to be true. And even if it is not---well, we have not gotten any reports about the dead being upset with their funeral services (or at least, none that I am aware of).

I was thinking about this today. For those who are reading this later, today was the ninth anniversary of the terrorist attack on the World Trade Center. As we moved closer to this anniversary, we all watched the news media focus on the actions and words of some blow-hard who is more busy trying to raise funds and be important than we have seen people actually addressing the fact that we are still healing from the 9/11 attacks. I would love to blame this on the editorial rule that if it bleeds, it leads, but I suspect that there is more to it than that.

The whole anger about the Muslim Culture Center is evidence that we still have a long way to go before we are fully healed from the wounds of 9/11. Of course, the news media and politicians are more concerned about keeping us upset than they are about seeing us actually recover from this particular tragedy. Those who are spoon-feeding us information are more concerned with keeping us upset and themselves in the driver's seat than they are about seeing that we actually recover from this act of violence.

If we are going to heal the emotional wounds from this, or at least get them healed to a level that we are not thinking about burning books and people in the street, we need to take our healing into our own hands.

During the days following this particular tragedy, I was rather impressed by some of the local pagan, Wiccans, and ceremonial magicians in the Denver area. Most of them stepped in circle and comforted one another. For a brief moment, the Denver community laid aside its differences and treated the wounded.

The wounded were not the dead; they were the living. Problem is that we only seem to remember the dead on days like today; we forget that we were all victims of this act of terrorism. And most people seem satisfied to leave our healing in the hands of the politicians (including the blow-hard who is more politician than spiritual leader). We need to rethink this policy.

Perhaps we need to think about taking our healing into our own hands. Yes, it will be a lot of work; but if we don't do it, who will?