The Honolulu Star-Bulletin on the Web.
FL MORRIS / FMORRIS@STARBULLETIN.COM
Mike Young has been pastor of the First Unitarian Church of Honolulu for seven years and previously served with churches in West Los Angeles and Tampa, Fla. He was a campus minister at Stanford University during the Vietnam War. He graduated from the University of Redlands and the Andover-Newton Theological School in Massachusetts.
When it comes to human suffering and tragedy, any attempt to establish relative moral equivalence borders on the obscene. The ragged hole left in the fabric of a life shared together is just as painfully empty. Still, every one of us was a target that day. The Priest
"Since 9/11, everything has changed; and everything is the same. ... Hawaii remains the same wonderful and frustrating place it has long been."
By the Rev. Mike Young
Pastor, First Unitarian Church of Honolulu
Our horror and our suffering was intended. Premeditated. That is the nature of terrorism.
[ WE REMEMBER ]
That is what the United States woke up to that September morning. Similar terrorist tragedies had occurred before, but the impact was not the same. This time, WE were the target. No one could escape the empathic identification. Even if none of our cherished loved ones were in the rubble, the attack was aimed at the United States.
Since 9/11, everything has changed -- and everything is the same. Those prone to free-floating anxiety now have a source to blame. Those in too big a hurry have a cause to cite for their inconvenience. Those certain that their vision of America is threatened have an easily identified enemy to cherish. But for most of us, Hawaii remains the same wonderful and frustrating place it has long been.
Our tourist-dependent economy remains unpredictable, as it has been since the Japanese bubble burst and Big Sugar exited a decade ago. Those dependent on investment income are hurting, but that is a consequence of the financial market's nose dive. The only people I know directly impacted by 9/11 are our military families, whose lives were given an additional cause for uncertainty.
Oh, there was a brief period of elevated church attendance, but that has passed with little residual gain. There was a similar increase in ostentatious patriotism as evidenced by the flags, decals and bumper stickers. But that was driven as much by entrepreneurs as anything else. I notice the flags mostly tattered or gone now, the stickers faded. We are not unpatriotic, just less pushy about it.
Many of us are as worried now about the use of the war on terrorism as a cover for eroding civil liberties and for military adventurism as we initially were about the immediate threat of terrorism. This makes for ambiguous feelings about the developments of the last several months.
For all that has changed, and remained the same, the one thing I fear we sadly have not learned is that this is what much of the rest of the world has come to know as a daily threat.
Protected by two oceans and two relatively peaceful borders, we had not had to learn to live with the daily possibility that some terrorist bomber would try to influence policy with my loved one's blood.
Can we make that leap of imagination to stand in solidarity with the people who suffer from terrorism on either side of the oh, so many conflicts that shred our planet's peace? Can we find the ways to end the terror without contributing to the continuing vicious circle?
TERRY GILLIAM / ASSOCIATED PRESS
Elizabeth McPeak said a prayer for the victims of the World Trade Center attack during a noon service Sept. 11, 2001, at the Catholic Diocese of Columbus in Columbus, Ohio.
