When We Disagree In trauma circles, they say, “Don’t ask, ‘What’s wrong with you?’ Ask, ‘What happened to you.’” In other words, all those people who seem crazy and wrong—the addict, the mentally ill, the homeless, the timid, the broken-hearted, the person imprisoned by cell walls or greed or an unacknowledged emptiness of heart—are not crazy or wrong. They are wounded. But what if that person is Republican, or Democrat, or Libertarian, or Socialist? What if he worships a different god than we do, or no god at all? Do we dismiss him as deluded, ignorant, or even evil? Does it make sense to wonder what happened to make her…
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Honor, Pearl Harbor, and 9/11
Remembering Pearl Harbor Seventy-eight years ago, on December 7, Japan bombed Pearl Harbor. The strike destroyed ships, damaged airfields, and killed over 2,400 people. One thousand more were wounded. Called by President Roosevelt “a date which will live in infamy,” December 7, 1941 changed the course of history, bringing the United States into World War II. [1] Those who lived through it thought it would live in our memories forever. But time moves on. For most people alive today, Pearl Harbor is a blip in a history book or online article. Being closer to us in time, 9/11 feeds more anguish and anger in our country today than does the…