right and seems right

So today is the first day of the fifth year since September 11, 2001. There was a documentary on Romanian TV about the jumpers and their story (or their story’s story). I talked briefly with my host family about it. Nina seemed genuinely interested – she had seen some other program about it on the 10th. She said “with all of the bad things that God does to punish us, why do people have to do bad things to each other?”. If the human race was collectively trying to minimize its punishment, that would be a great question.

Today is the only day of the year when I feel like praying, even though I don’t believe in God. It is similar to the time we went to the basement with the tornado flew over our backyard and took out the willow trees. I was young enough to not have decided about God, but I was praying regardless of that decision. I guess when you lose all control over your most fundamental rights (security, happiness, life…), you appeal to the only thing you’ve ever heard could help you. I assumed that closing my eyes and putting my palms flat against each other would have saved me from being torn out of the basement of our house by the blackness and roaring that was outside, so I did it. I would do it now if I thought the same. I almost do.

That is the effect of terrorism.

There are many random causes of death completely outside of our control which are done by God. Terrorism, however, is done by man. We forgive God because we cannot kill him – for many of us, killing him means killing ourselves. We never have to forgive men – and we have perfected the art of killing men for thousands of years. And so we kill them by the tens of thousands.

Like me almost praying, at least it feels right.