In my last post, I talked (in a roundabout way) about accepting responsibility for your desires and ambitions.

In this post, I'd like to talk about something more specific . . .

I'm sure all of us remember where we were the day hell unloaded on the United States in 2001 (the day the planes crashed into the World Trade Center). I remember that day particularly vividly because I was frantically working on a 2 page reflection paper that was due at 10:30am that morning. I entered the TCU Library logged onto cnn.com (as was my usual custom before working on a paper), only to find the website not loading (this, I knew, meant something was going on). I kept working on my paper (this was around 8am CST) and tried USAToday.com with a little more success.

On it was a headline story about a plane crashing into the Twin Towers and money floating down to the street.

I kept working, and kept monitoring the news site, hoping to learn more. When I saw a sentence pop up on the story saying the FBI had begun an investigation and that the President's administration was calling it a terrorist attack, I became alarmed (especially when I saw nothing new for approximately 15-20 minutes while booting the window up over and over again). I tried cnn.com again--no luck.

At that point, I didn't know if anyone else in the library knew about what was happening (or might be), but I knew there was a television in the Student Center which was tuned to news programs 50% of the time, and I would probably find out what I needed to know there--so I packed up my things, left the library, and walked over to the Student Center, not knowing what was happening (or could be).

I got there just in time to see the North Tower crumble to the ground on live television.

There was a massive crowd of students gathered around the television, all deathly silent. I edged closer, and I remember losing all focus on everything around me except what the ABC news crew was saying (and the images of destruction they aired over and over again). The first things I really heard were "the Pentagon has been hit" and "the President is on Air Force One, and we do not know his location at this time"--both of which evoked nightmare images I had grown up with of what to expect in the 15-30 minutes before nuclear annihilation during the Cold War. I remember Peter Jennings saying, amidst the drone of field reporters, "And now, to add to the chaos, we're getting reports of another jumbo jet crashed in Pennsylvania" (we, of course, know that this was the one jet prevented from reaching its destination due to the courageous--and self-sacrificial-intervention of its passengers).

I stayed glued to the television--I stayed glued to every television.

There was an announcement that TCU would be closed for the day, and students gathered outside for an informal and communal time of prayer.

None of us who were there felt safe for a long time after that day--and I had nightmare scenarios going through my mind of planes falling from the sky by the dozens and destroying homes, offices, and stadiums.

This past Sunday afternoon, I watched the movie United 93, which details the final moments (at least as they've been pieced together) of the flight that crashed in Pennsylvania--and which was apparently headed for the White House or Capitol Building in D.C. I knew it would be an intensely traumatic experience, as I had run scenarios through my head of what those passengers must have gone through in their final moments on that flight--but it was also, I knew, a necessary healing experience.

I remember watching the scenes of the men preparing themselves emotionally and spiritually to destroy 3000 lives, including their own, and at first, I wanted to say, "poignant" and "heroic". After all, as anyone who has seen the film knows, the hijackers were portrayed quite 3-dimensionally (as were the passengers and crew), and no one can deny that their actions weren't, at some level, courageous (if you don't think so, I challenge you to strap on a belt of plastic explosives around your waist sometime--I don't know what it's like (thank god), but I do know it is a course of action that I do not remotely have the balls to undertake).

As the movie progressed, however, I began to think something else: "Just because an action is heroic doesn't mean it isn't destructive or evil."

I applaud personal conviction--and stand by the ones I have. I believe that it is important to know who you are and stand up for what you believe is right. I believe that a person who is willing to suffer or even be killed because they do not (and will not) renounce their faith in God (whatever he/she/it may be to them) is a harbinger of beauty, wondrous to behold.

I also know, however, that it is a deeply-ingrained human tendency to attach words like "heroic" or "inspiring" to actions that are, at their essence, monstrous. Christianity, for example, has seen more "heroic" butchery in the name of God in its 2000 year-long history than any other religion that has ever existed--crusades, inquisitions, holy wars, and on and on and on.

Those men who flew the planes that day hoping to etch their names in history succeeded--however, they did so at the cost of 3000 people who neither knew about, nor wanted to be part of, this event. Your nation, your personal convictions . . . your God . . . are not worth someone else's well-being--and life. They are not worth a broken family, a dead child, or a ruined livelihood.

I don't care who you are or what God you believe in--you have no right on this Earth (or any other) to take someone else's life in your hands against their will . . . and as far as I'm concerned, if you are guilty of taking other people's blood in the service of your beliefs, you deserve every ounce of hostility you receive.

Those men (as I said above) may have been courageous--but they were still villains. And anyone who advocates the shedding of blood in the cause of their God (whatever that God may be) is just as villainous as they were.