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On September 8 I left Seattle on my first train trip ever. On my last birthday I’d made a list of things to do that I have never done before; at age 53 I had never been on train, so there I was at Union Station with my sister and son saying goodbye like a kid on her first day of school. My very loving sister insisted on giving me some "streetwise instructions," which included martial arts defense moves and how to carry myself with empowerment. I had no real sense of danger or fearfulness, but I listened and was grateful for such a caring and realistic soul looking after me. On September 10, I arrived in Denver, Colorado full of wonderful train experience and excited to see my friends and family. On September 11, everything changed. The impact of that day will ripple through our universe for eternity. I did not return home by train as planned for multiple reasons, and ended up booking a flight home scheduled to leave Denver on October 11. Again, I had no real sense of concern. As I stepped up to the curbside check-in at Denver International Airport, I was thinking how wonderful it was that all of these people decided to carry on with life as usual. I handed my ticket to the lady behind the computer; she punched in all of the pertinent data and then came to a pause that immediately felt like a misplaced chord in a song one unconsciously knows by heart. I watched her eyes, but she would not look straight at me as she pulled out a red felt pen and marked my ticket with a red "S." Her voice seemed anxious as she spoke: "You have been randomly selected by our computer to have all your belongings searched and electronically scanned. Please step inside of the terminal through these doors and wait in the express check-in line. Give your ticket to the agent there, who will direct you to the next step. Thank you." Disbelief consumed me. Was this really happening to me, the one with deep roots in the ’60s, the one who embraced "all you need is love"? Couldn’t they see that I was an unassuming, maternal looking fifty-year-old American woman? I gathered my belongings and did as I was instructed. My luggage was taken, along with my ticket, and I was told to stand in the waiting area designated for people with red Ss on their tickets. Red Ss: what a curious symbol to choose! I considered the color red and its association with anger, fear, and bloodshed and, of course, the base chakra. As for the letter S, what did it mean? The Scarlet Letter came to mind. I remembered reading that book in English Literature in high school. The adulteress was branded with the scarlet letter "A" so that everyone would know her sin. Wow, is our puritan memory still so powerful? In about thirty minutes or so, a man came up and called my name, handed me my ticket, and directed me to the next line of people, all waiting to pass through security and on to the terminal gates. The line was almost a half mile long. I played back the events of my life and tried to sort out all of the information I had collected since September 11. The words of news commentators echoed in my head: "Be at the airport at least three hours early. Try not to have any carry-on luggage." I was there four hours early and only had a backpack to carry on. "Americans have lost trust in the airlines and are afraid to fly. Now we are afraid of our own mailboxes. What is next?" I was not afraid to fly. I was not afraid of the mail. I was not afraid to live. But I had a red S on my ticket and was surrounded by a world living in fear. My logical mind considered the possibility that I did fit the criteria of a potential terrorist. It was mentioned to me that being four hours early for a flight was unusual. I recalled that my ticket was a one-way airplane ticket, because I had arrived by train and my sister had purchased it in Denver, sent it to my home in Auburn, Washington, from where it was forwarded to me back in Denver. The computer systems must have a way to collect and flag information that fits a preprogrammed terrorist detection equation. I hoped it was working for the real bad guys. I was also wearing khaki-colored pants, and my backpack was a gray-green color. So there I was, pondering possibilities, as I approached the next security point. Just before the scanners, an airport employee was checking tickets and destinations. I was told that because I had a red S, I would be searched again at the departing gate. It had also come to my attention that there was no food service on this flight. Later, it was explained to the passengers that the airline did not have an effective way to secure the food preparation process at this time. In any case, I needed nourishment, so I went to the food court and stood in another line. About three people in back of me I heard the voice of a man. "I wish all the Afghanis we may have killed so far could all come back to life long enough for me to personally kill them again just for making me wait in these lines!" The sound of his voice escalated as he spoke and seemed to echo in the openness of the terminal. I looked around to see if anyone was going to ask him to go to the designated area for anger management, but there was no response. Was anyone watching this guy? As I looked around, I saw a person across the lobby talking into his lapel, and when he saw me, he stepped behind a support column and just hung out there. There were about ten of us chosen for surveillance on that flight. As boarding time approached, we were to line up against the wall to wait to have our personal belongings searched again. A special agent with a metal detection wand of some sort scanned our bodies. The person doing the scanning was a younger man with a military haircut wearing wraparound sunglasses. I wonder now if the glasses gave him X-ray vision. It was such a strange encounter of the invasive kind. I had a conversation with another "red S" woman, who shared with me that she had traveled abroad for years, and this was nothing new to the rest of the world. It is only now that Americans have been forced to give up their elitism. She was wearing khaki-colored clothing also. I began to feel as though my red S meant that I was special. I had been given an opportunity to walk directly into the reality of a fear that was beyond any magnitude or intensity that my peaceful mind could imagine. I have the greatest respect for all those who are trying desperately to recover from the wound that has stricken the core of our nation’s soul. It is with the deepest reverence that I would like to share a resounding paradox that has come to me about fear and faith. No matter what your personal religion or belief system, there is one thing that is common to all. We have been told to "fear no evil" and trust in God, Spirit, Allah, or Gaia herself. Peaceful existence is the Hindu and Buddhist path to enlightenment. We are all one, from the same source of creation, and life goes on and on throughout eternity. The Taliban share some of these same religious beliefs. They have absolute faith that they will be rewarded in heaven, and their entire lives are spent waiting to die and be sent into the arms of their God. As distorted as this may seem to most of us, it is really no different than the Christian teachings about the rewards of heaven, Buddha’s search for nirvana or the pagan desire for joining in oneness with the earth. They see death as better than life. The most deadly weapon they have is the ability to escalate our personal fears. The most frightening people are those who have nothing to loose. We cannot destroy an emotional belief system like that of the Taliban with bombs, ground artillery, or Special Forces. They are willing to die for what they believe in. The only way to eradicate a weapon that is fueled by belief and emotion is with an equally powerful belief that we will not allow fear to destroy the possibility of a peaceful existence. We must be willing to live for what we believe without fear, and in the light of our human capacity for love. I recently spent some time with a group of very bright and strong beings that gathered to share insights and hope for our planet. Above and beyond every conceivable explanation for what is happening now, I came away with the astonishing perspective that even though we are suffering unimaginable pain and grief, it is our aggressor that brings us the most important gift. We are reminded that our human evolution has truly progressed toward a peaceful existence. We no longer feed Christians to the lions; we will no longer tolerate the annihilation of an ethnic group because of their beliefs, and we can choose to not be afraid. We have the power to gather together and remember what we already know. All that is evil comes from fear. There is divine order in the perfection of our human imperfections. There is now, because of humanity’s insidious intention to destroy fellow humans, more possibility for love than at any other time in human history. What I know is that without darkness, we would not know the beauty of light, and without the red S on my ticket, I would not be so positive that someday fear will lose its place in our global vision. I had a "S"pecial opportunity to choose fear and anger, but instead, I am still not afraid to fly. Next time, I will carry a snack with me, arrive only three hours early, and possibly wear blue jeans. The beauty is that we can all make the same choice and defeat the enemy within each of us. One day, one thought, one action at a time will make the insanity end as we choose to journey beyond our fears. |