Where's The Target? LO27237

From: John Dicus (jdicus@ourfuture.com)
Date: 09/20/01


There's a thought that's been stirring in me.

Actually, it's an image -- an image coalescing from a series of questions
that don't have concrete answers.

People keep saying how redundant the Trade Towers were. How they each
absorbed the impact of a huge commercial jet traveling at over 300 mph.
The fire was the clincher, they say. But the towers still stood, even
after the colossal impacts.

A day or so after the towers fell, I began to wonder how badly damaged we
were. I began to wonder how redundant we were. We -- America and our
friends.

I'm realizing more every day how severely this has impacted me. And how
long it will be before I'm well. As well as I'll ever be, anyway, for I'm
still getting worse day by day -- not better. I'll get past it. Just not
today.

But, nonetheless, I started to wonder what one could target to really hurt
us. I mean to REALLY hurt us. Not just cause us human grief and loss.
Not just make a big mess and cost us tons of money. Not just make us stop
doing what we were doing for a few weeks. But to really hurt us.

I'm not able to find answers to these questions.

I'm thinking that there is nothing one could target (and hit) that could
do the damage the perpetrators of last week's crime may have intended.
They made us sad and we're crying. They made us angry. I think angry,
not so much at anyone in particular when you force yourself to think
systemically, but angry that so many people suffered so horribly for no
real reason. I'm just starting to feel each one of the deaths -- one by
one -- as they parade out of that deep place where my coping mechanism had
prematurely interred them. We hurt so much because we've already started
to heal.

I'm thinking that there is no place a terrorist could strike that would do
anything of consequence. For we are not geography or things -- even
though geography and things have meaning to us.

We are a dream coming true. We are a pattern of thought. We are an
ideal.
 We are open space that has no space as we know space. We are everywhere
and nowhere at once.

Just as thought and reason can exist in different parts of the human brain
as pattern, America can exist anywhere. America is patterns of thought --
concepts. Scatter us, and we are still whole. Move us to another planet,
and we are still whole. Bomb us, and we are still whole. Kill our
children and our loved ones, and we are still whole.

So why even try?

Where does that leave a person who, for any reason, wants to harm us?

Where does that leave a wounded country as she looks for answers, and
peace, and truth, and justice, and mercy?

One answer seems to be moving in me. Our conscience. What can a
perpetrator accomplish? They can effect our conscience. Have we done
anything to bring this on? What should we do now, that is both
sustainable and just? Would there have been a less harmful way to effect
our conscience? I sure hope so.

Peace,

John Dicus

-- 
John Dicus  |  CornerStone Consulting Associates
- Leadership - Systems Thinking - Teamwork - Open Space - Electric Maze -
2761 Stiegler Road, Valley City, OH 44280
800-773-8017  |  330-725-2728 (2729 fax)
mailto:jdicus@ourfuture.com  |  http://www.ourfuture.com

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