Give us this day

Asking a small group of teens what they think about 9/11 is not as different as you'd expect:

"I think it's stupid!  We should have just dropped the big bomb on their a**es. Nobody should be messin' with us!"

"I think the government is stupid.  They could have stopped it.  They just wanted a reason to crack down on everybody.  My brother says they just want to read our email and listen to our cell phones and lock us up."

"I think you're stupid.  I'm glad that they are doing a memorial so people have a place to come, like a headstone at a grave.  It's important to have a place to go when you miss someone."

"But not everyone one gets a memorial, not everyone gets remembered." (His father had been shot and killed in front of him just 2 month ago by a police officer.)

So I asked her, "Why do you think it's important to have a memorial where we can go to mourn?"

"Because we need to feel close to them.  And maybe close to others that lost, too. Like when you talked to us about God wanting us to know people instead of just judge them.  That it's harder to hate a group when you know someone in it that gives you a different story."

"That doesn't mean that group won't still kill you, though."

"No, but I don't want to live like I'm afraid.  I want to count the good things, the things I can control, like my friends, my family, the people in my life.  I don't want no lairs, or players, or crooks in my life anymore."

"But it's bigger than that!  If I want someone to respect me, than I need to look them in the eye.  They have to see me, not some gang, or school, or group.  They need to know my name."

I asked the group, "What do you think would change if that were true?"

There were no great big solutions that night.  No earth shattering revelations.  Yet, we all shared our points of view, learned something deeper about each other and our world.  I felt the Spirit moving from one to another, to another.  These are the conversations I cherish, because I know if we don't communicate and create community together, we all lose.