As I watched the Twin Towers fall from the my 6th Floor Seminar room in Dealy Hall at Fordham, I knew that our country would be tested as it never had been since the multiple crises of the 1960's
Would we come out of this terrible ordeal , which would include the deaths of friends, co-workers, and family members, with our hearts hardened to the suffering of those following different traditions than our own, or would we come out of it more open minded and compassionate?
The jury is still out on that issue. The unity that followed those awful events has dissipated, and we live in a country where many people are filled with rage, at war with their own neighbors, as well as people who do not think they way they do.
Yet all is not lost. We are not beyond redemption
So I ask this: :Let the heroism and unselfishness of so many people that day, of individuals not in uniform as well as first responders, offer a model of how we can be better than we ever thought possible, both as individuals as as a country
I honor my friends who died when the Towers collapsed, some of whom were fellow coaches in Brooklyn CYO basketball, but I also honor the transcendent possibilities of compassion and generosity that were revealed that day, and in the days that followed.
At a time when we see, on a daily basis, too many people drawing on their worst instincts,.let us find the best in ourselves the way so many people did on that tragic day
Peace to all.
