Again, it is the anniversary of that awful day.
I don’t have much to add to my thoughts of last year, except this –
The call to national unity that both featured speakers made then is more urgent now. Yet that unity is farther away.
I don’t know how to fix this. I’m certain no single individual can fix this, and I despair that anyone, or any small group, can even figure out what the fix is.
I do know, that by showing light and love in my personal life, in my day-to-day interactions with everyone, as best as I can – this is the bit I can contribute to build unity, to help heal our Nation and world.
Not conformity. Not bland sameness. Not the suppression of differing opinions, of different paths through the vibrant diversity and restless ferment that is the soul of our American Experiment. But a unity of hope for, and love of, our shared country – a unity of desire to make ourselves and our nation the best possible for each and every one of us.
Next weekend is the 21st International Festival, put on by one of the largest mosques here in the Toledo area. One week after that tragedy, a community that found itself under scrutiny for ‘guilt by association’, regarded with distrust and fear by the larger community they were contained within, bravely and deliberately put on an event to showcase the diversity of their members, their union through a religion, and their allegiance to America. A living example of that motto –
E Pluribus, Unum.