Uncensored From My Heart

Yesterday was the 10th anniversary of 9/11. On Saturday we took the kids to a park where there is an Armed Forces Memorial. We talked to them about things like Liberty, Freedom, Our Country. We also talked to them about what happened in our country on September 11, 2001. Then last night we watched the Mormon Tabernacle Choir's 9/11 special on TV. At the end the choir sang God Bless America. Click here to watch. Two minutes into the song they started showing footage of people helping each other after the towers fell. I'm not a crying person, but that made me cry. It's making me cry again right now. It made me so sad to see those images of Americans coming together on that day as human beings helping and loving other human beings. Look at us now. What has happened in the last ten years? Are we those same people? Who came together with an unconditional love for one another? It makes me laugh to even think of that. No. We're not. Why?

I'm not trying to lump everyone into one category. So don't think I am. I'm talking about our country as a whole. There's no unconditional love. There's no coming together. We just want everyone to sit down and the shut the heck up. Right? I have very firm beliefs when it comes to Our Nation. And I can't ever express my beliefs without feeling like I am being attacked. That's not what America is. I am free to believe what I believe just as everyone else is. I'm just so sick of it all. It's ugly. It's ugly. It really is. Those images in that video of 9/11, those are Beautiful. Why does it have to take something so devastating and horrible to make us stop? And look at everyone through different eyes. We are all regular people. Just trying to make it through this life the best we can. None of us are perfect. Can't we just try a little to be those people in the video again? Those people who didn't care what political party you belonged to or if you recycled or not. Those people who just cared about you. As an individual. Regardless of how you vote in the next election.

Wow. Lighten up Allyson. I got way off track with this post. This was supposed to be a Monday Morning Musing post and I even have like ten pictures below this text that I was gonna talk about that have nothing to do with 9/11. It seems wrong to talk and laugh about such lighthearted matters in this post now. I guess this is no longer a MMM. That will have to come later.

Really though. Think about it. What kind of person are you? Honestly. Just between you and yourself. Are you the kind of person in that video? Or are you too busy trying to shut up your neighbor's "hate speech" with your own "hate speech"? Which person am I? I don't know. I'll have to think about it for a while before I can give you an honest answer. I know which person I want to be. I know which person I hope I am. But I have to do some soul searching before I can really answer that question truthfully. I hope you will do some soul searching too.

What happens when you figure it out? About which person you are. What if you don't like it? This is what I tell my kids when they are trying to do something hard or that they don't like. Don't look at the whole task. Just look at one little chunk of it at a time. Break it down into days or hours or minutes. For the next 30 minutes, I'm going to be this kind of person. And then try your hardest for the next 30 minutes to be that person. Then try another 30 minutes after that. Pretty soon, doing something for 30 minutes becomes easier than it was at first. Pretty soon, you are making progress. You must be the change you want to see in the world, right?

It has been a couple hours since I typed this. I keep trying to decided if I am going to click on the "Publish Post" button or not. Like I said, I sat down to do a lighthearted post on several different topics. But when I started typing about 9/11, this just came out. It felt good to get it out. But now I am left with the choice, to share or not to share. I'm leaning more towards sharing. Please don't judge me when you read this. I was just typing from my heart. Here it goes. Take a deep breath and post...