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Making
things happen - with integrity. A weekly CyberMemo designed to keep you on task. Monday September 17, 2001 Volume III Number 38 |
FOCUS - What is America?
It’s a question I’ve been thinking about. Not just this week. Before Tuesday’s gut wrenching event, way down deep, I’d been wondering - what happened to the country I once knew?
Sometimes, I would drive across down, or sit on a crowded freeway or at a clogged intersection, and ponder the question. These were, admittedly, my darker moments, those times when cynicism and doubts and maybe even a touch of despair take over; probably triggered by the frustrations and annoyances that pelt us heavily like an Idaho hailstorm in the ordinary course of contemporary life. Stuck in traffic, I would look at the long line of high powered, gas guzzling, pollution spewing vehicles, windows closed, cooled air blasting through the vents inside, people of every variety behind the wheel with a blank stare appearing just as annoyed as me, facing forward, inching along in an endless procession that one could only call a monumental waste of time, consuming non-renewable resources, depleting planet Earth of her rich natural energy, warming the globe, and producing nothing in particular of value except, perhaps, “getting there.”
But where?
I would be in one of those “what’s the point?” moods.
And I’d think about our Nation. My homeland. Something’s missing, I’d say to myself. Something really important.
I’m old enough now to remember a time when citizenship meant something. When people would fill out the paperwork, take the classes, read the books, spend the specified period of time waiting; and then finally, in a ceremony filled with pomp circumstance, be welcomed into the family of U. S. citizenry and with hand over heart and tears streaming down the cheeks, Pledge Allegiance to the Flag.
Does that happen anywhere any more?
I’m also the member, by birth date, of a generation commonly known as the “Boomers.” For a couple of decades, we crammed our naïve but ardently held ideas (which we thought were new and bold) down the unwilling throats of the Greatest Generation (we didn’t think of them in those terms back then) and embraced this rather ambitious notion that our heady enlightenment would usher in the Age of Aquarius and be the dawning of a new day of global brotherhood and sisterhood and the elimination of hunger, poverty, disease, violent conflict and every other sort of nasty contamination. Sadly, all that has gone the way of the tie-dyed t-shirt and the flowered VW Microbus.
We Boomers have become much more valuable as a target market than a source of wisdom. We are now officially “old school.”
And in these moments of dark reflection, I ponder the power of the Internet. Global and national boundaries blur and become less and less significant. Border checkpoints seem a relic of some forgotten past when there was a real distinction between here and there. Illegal trade is big business. Politicians and government institutions are the subject of cynical jokes. We sneer, throw up our hands at the thought of waiting in line either on the telephone or in the lobby of some government agency waiting to fill out some form or respond to a piece of mail or pay a tax or a fee.
They call America the Land of the Free. There seems to be no shortage of people who revel in the freedom but have no concept of the responsibility or obligations associated with that freedom. Much less any sense of the cost of freedom.
So what is America anyway?
* * * * * * *
Tuesday morning, this week I got up early for a seven o’clock meeting in town, which I was scheduled to chair. As I sketched out the agenda on a yellow pad, I clicked on the computer to check e-mail. A news alert popped up, reporting that an airplane collided with one of the two towers of the World Trade Center in New York.
Odd, I thought, that a pilot could have been so out of touch as to make such a ghastly error. Must have been a fog over the city. I wondered how many were hurt.
I flipped on the television to learn more. Turns out, my e-mail alert was old and way off point. Not one, but two towers were hit. Not by a private airplane, but two jumbo jets, the two impacts some fifteen minutes apart. Two airliners. Filled with passengers. It was widely believed to be a terrorist attack.
My eyes widened.
I jumped into my vehicle to drive fifteen minutes to the conference room, and as Peter Jennings reported the story through our local affiliate, his voice caught, and he reported live what happened next. I had seen the smoke billowing from the buildings on television at home. I imagined the horror of the occupants. But stuck with an audio track, and no visuals, my mind could not accept Jennings’ report. It was too much to comprehend. In a media moment that rivaled the announcement to a bewildered nation by CBS anchor Walter Cronkite in 1962 that President Kennedy after a sniper attack in Dallas was pronounced dead, the steely ABC anchor, Peter Jennings, was overcome with emotion, unable to speak with the baritone clarity so familiar to us all.
On the air, he confirmed with some difficulty, “The South Tower has just collapsed.” He cleared his throat. “The South Tower of the World Trade Center in New York City is no more.”
I pulled into my parking slot, and stopped for a moment to pray, unable even to imagine the scene or even believe that the report I had just heard might be true.
Even without the benefit of full color images, replayed in slo-mo in surround sound stereo, I felt as though something life-changing, something radical, for the nation, even the world, and even for me, had just taken place on an otherwise ordinary Tuesday morning in September.
Our meeting went ahead as scheduled.
There was business to tend to. But there was a dark cloud hanging over our conference table. And when I returned home, I saw those images. Not just one Tower. But both. Imploding and falling to the earth in a horrific cloud of concrete crushed into a fine powder resembling the ash from Mt. Saint Helen’s terrible eruption, and bent steel, and shards of glass and orange flames still flickering in black smoke all the way down.
And lifeless bodies scattered all over the plaza. Eyewitness reports that occupants of the upper floors without hope, made the jump.
Crowds at the street level ran desperately from the crushing, billowing ruins.
Screaming.
“Oh my God!”
* * * * * * *
Symbols are real. Symbols exist in the real world, but they represent something far greater. Some call them archetypes. People refer regularly now to the twin towers of the World Trade Center as “symbols.” Symbols of our economy. Symbols of our strength. Symbols of our mighty technology. Symbols of our success. Symbols of our excess.
I remember when we spoke of the materialistic excesses of the 1980s. It seems that President Ronald Reagan, with his cheery belief in an economic system that some scornfully called “Trickle Down Economics,” renewed our interest in capitalism. He countered the Boomer generation’s socialistic tendencies with a frontal attack on the Evil Empire. He personally called for the disintegration of the Berlin Wall. He opened the globe for free trade. He cut tax rates. He celebrated success. He and Nancy brought style back to the White House.
Yuppies emerged, eclipsing Boomer values with pure profit motive. They drove BMWs shunning their parent’s Volvos and dressed for success. The stock market bulls woke up, and the 80s economy took off.
But the excesses of the 80s pale in comparison to the excesses of the 90s.
Look at the NASDAQ’s meteoric rise. A new generation vowed to retire no later than age thirty-two. And some did. All you needed was a web-based idea and a geeky techno nerd on staff. No product required. No assets. No customers. Nothing – just a concept and a business plan. The richest man on planet Earth is a software maker, the trendsetter of 90s mega-wealth. And there were enough stories of overnight riches to generate huge momentum toward venture capital Nirvana; the quick public offering, cashing in and checking out.
Looking back, the excesses of the 90s were as audacious as the two tallest buildings on Manhattan's skyline.
This doesn’t mean that skyscrapers should necessarily be associated with excess. I’m proud to live in a country that spawns the expertise and craftsmanship and engineering that make these marvels of creativity possible.
But something happened to me when I watched them crumble and fall.
It was the awful terror of lives lost on a massive scale. It was anger, even rage at the perpetrators of such a despicable, contemptible crime. But it was also a strong realization that I have been guilty of placing my faith and my hopes and my aspirations in the wrong place.
The crushing implosion of those amazing structures spelled paradigm shift on a very personal level for me. And, I think, for our nation.
Two one hundred and ten story buildings housing fifty thousand employees, entertaining as many as ninety-thousand visitors per day, a virtual city within a city, a fitting backdrop for the Statue of Liberty, gleaming gold in the reflection of the setting sun, a symbol of economic strength; gone in a matter of minutes.
Gone.
George W. Bush is becoming our President. This week.
Each day as we watch, listen, hope, he becomes more and more Presidential. He may well have been elected under the least favorable circumstances in the history of the Presidency, but he is emerging, in the second half of his first year, finally, as a first class, credible, effective world leader.
In his first speech, he made a powerful remark. He said, “they may bend, even break, the steel of our tallest buildings. But they will never bend the steel of our national resolve.”
Our President pointed to something powerfully true. Our real strength is not measured in material terms. Our strength is rooted in something spiritual. Something unseen. Something intangible. And our President is quite right when he says that the terrorist’s plot backfired. Instead of crippling us, they gave us the gift of national unity.
Our city skylines, our transportation systems, our military might, our standard of living, our educational institutions, our productivity, all derive from that spiritual strength of which our President speaks. They are all the byproduct of unity, of commonality, of creativity, of individual achievement, of mutual respect, of cooperative effort. America is a place where a diverse people join hands and hearts and make amazing things happen. “Red and yellow, black and white, all are precious…”
That America that to me seemed so lost just may be emerging again.
This is America.
Coming back.
* * * * *
The first real sign that hope is alive (and
I don’t know why it had such a powerful impact on me) was the line up of New
Yorkers cheering the firefighters and rescue workers and police officers as
they fearlessly re-entered the “war zone.”
Signs and banners and uninhibited shouting spelled pride. Americans proud of their heroes, men and women entering into
the ongoing danger to search, rescue, and recover.
Then, of all things, Democrats and Republicans and Independents on the steps of the Capital Building pledged their support of our President and our military leadership in an unprecedented display of unity. Then they broke out in a spontaneous rendition of “God Bless America!” All across the country, Americans joined together with them, displaying flags, lighting candles and joining hands.
I don’t know what will happen when the stock markets open on Monday. Many of us expect a sell-off of some sort. But I have a sense already that most of us feel that selling is under the circumstances, well, un-American. It’s the opposite of patriotism. A move toward some hope of self-preservation is a default admission of doubt in our fellow Americans. A selfish vote that says, I don’t think we’ll make it this time.
This is one thing we Americans don’t want to hear.
We believe in our ability to recover.
* * * * * * * *
Carolyn and I have walked the halls of the National Cathedral. It is a stunning achievement of art and architecture. It is a holy place. It inspires spiritual renewal. President Bush declared Friday a national day of prayer. We grieved together the loss of thousands of fellow-citizens, innocents, who leave family and friends with an aching emptiness that will never really go away.
At the moment of impact, and the sight of implosion, most of us uttered the same phrase. We heard it over and over again – as people ran for safety, as people watched the impact of airliners crashing into buildings, as people witnessed the collapse of massive towers or the gaping open scar on the Pentagon, as people saw dazed and bleeding wounded wander through the dust blanketed streets… they said the same thing.
“Oh my God.”
“Oh my God.” Where did THAT come from? (Those of us who were schooled in the Ten Commandments have a basic problem with the phrase. We know that it is flirting dangerously with a use of the Lord’s name that well may be in vain. Not good. So just to be safe, we modify it to “Oh my gosh.” Or better, “Oh my.”)
It’s safe to say, I think, that no matter how dim, there is a national awareness of the personal and living presence of God in the world. Some my have difficulty embracing the notion, or feeling any degree of confidence that God may be known; but the knee jerk use of the phrase at a time of serious crisis betrays our awareness. And maybe even our need.
For some it is nothing more than an empty exclamation. For others it is a call for help. In a profound way, it is the essence of a simple prayer.
People calling on God.
It was good, and right, for our national leaders to be seen not just in the War Room, or in the West Wing. Or in a Joint Session. But to be seen in a Cathedral, calling on God Himself… “a very present help in a time of trouble.”
Among the varied religious leaders taking part, my personal favorite was Billy Graham, who confessed, “Today, I am an old man.” Perhaps he is. But what a legacy. What a message. What a confident hope; hope enough to rebuild a nation.
“Oh my God…” Said right, it’s an appeal to a personal God… “my” God. A God who is able. A God of mercy and lovingkindness and grace. “A Shelter in the time of storm.”
* * * * * * * *
It’s Monday morning. You are a leader. You now live in a changed world. A new world.
The risks are huge. Our actions as a nation could well proliferate into a global conflict. We trust not. Time will tell.
But for now, as the twin towers fell and the Pentagon was pierced, our complacency vanished, too. We all love freedom; we all want liberty. But with the unmistakable vision of “apocalypse now” forever etched in our memory, we’ve come face to face with the duties of freedom. The obligations of freedom. The responsibilities of freedom. The cost of freedom.
As you renew your affection for that Grand Old Flag, as you resolve to keep from retreating into some bearish fear that your own personal doomsday just may well be right around the corner, as you show up for work just a little earlier with a more focused game plan, and as you develop that locker room speech for your team, remember that our source of strength isn’t the bank account or the portfolio or the real estate or the balance sheet or the cash reserves.
The determination, the resolve, the sustenance, well, they all come from a well that is far deeper. Drop the bucket down there. Pull it up by the rope, and you’ll find fresh, satisfying water. Go ahead, drink it.
And ultimately, our real Source of strength is the very One who gave us life. The one who sustains us in time of trouble.
“Oh my God.”
I trust He is. For you.
© Copyright Kenneth E. Kemp 2001
Special Thanks to my good friend David Belcher, owner of Rhino Media Group and creator of WisdomGram
LeaderFOCUS is a service of Good Stewardship Associates
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