Beneath Our Fears There Is Hope

Sept. 11 found me rising early on the East Side of New York City so I could catch the 8:45 a.m. Continental Airlines flight from Newark to Orange County. I grabbed a cab to the Port Authority bus terminal. As the cabby barreled down the avenues, I was enchanted by the early-morning light glistening on the architectural marvels of the Manhattan skyscrapers, among them the majestic towers of the World Trade Center.

That early hour brimmed with the hopes and possibilities of a new day. Such hopes and possibilities were left brutally bruised and battered by the tempest of terror that swooped down upon that city and shocked the world.

Wandering among the vast crowds of people outside the evacuated Newark airport, it was unsettling to see a nation go to military alert, the police and military with guns exposed, every movement open to suspicion.

At the same time, my eyes caught the glimmers of an enduring humanity that trembles but not does surrender to fear. The men and women of the port authority, the many employees of the airlines, all did their jobs with bold determination and a gentle diligence while holding back the tears, muting a seething anger and shaking off the daze.

While the violence continued to grow in magnitude during the course of that dismal, dark day, the memory of a recent incident kept recurring in my mind.

A few days earlier in New York, I had realized that my cell phone was missing and assumed that it had fallen out of my pocket in the cab.

Instantly I thought it was lost, but one of the group quickly urged me to call my cell number on his phone. I dialed the number and, sure enough, the cabby picked up the phone still lying on the seat, and then stated the obvious: “You left your phone in the car.” He told me to go back to where he had dropped us off.

I went back to the corner and waited. Out of the sea of traffic came the cab. The driver’s hand was outstretched holding the phone. I grabbed the phone.

As his grip then became a wave he dived back into the evening’s tide of traffic. A simple, ordinary act of kindness in what many would consider a very tough town.

Finally, after three days of waiting, calling, confirming and reconfirming, I was relieved to be homeward bound from Newark to Orange County on the following Friday.

The shadows of dust and smoke still stir in my brain and haunt my soul, as I am sure they do for many of us no matter where we stood that day.

The daily grinds and weekly routines take on a new significance in the wake of this blow to the ordinariness of our lives. To do the ordinary after such a shattering assault upon us requires renewed courage and amazing grace.

The ordinary life in the shadow of this cataclysm becomes extraordinary and may be the only way to salvation from terror’s suffocating grip. The ordinary becomes opportune and fortunate, brimming with hope and possibilities to be the best we can be and to do the best we can do.

Let our lives be formed by our hopes and not by our fears. Let us not live afraid of what harm can be done to us. Rather, let us live for all the good we can do.