Category: Words To Live By

16 years ago today was a tragedy so terrible in our country that I’m not sure how any of us who were teenagers to adults back then could ever forget it. It’s a day where we all tearfully watched American Airlines Flight 11 and United Airlines Flight 175 crash into the North and South Towers of the World Trade Center (WTC) eventually bringing them both down, a day where American Airlines Flight 77 crashed into the Pentagon destroying a good portion of it, a day where United Airlines Flight 93 crashed into a field in Stonycreek Township near Shanksville, Pennsylvania, and a day where the deaths of 2,996 people were recorded due to the senseless acts of Al-Qaeda terrorists.

But for those who were born just before, on, or after 9/11/2001, emerges a generation who will never know the pain that all of us felt as we watched those tragic events unfold before our very eyes. Most of us were glued to the television for hours on end starting that day, watching as the footage was replayed over and over again of the WTC towers coming down. Seeing the burning rubble at what remained of the WTC site or the smoldering plane lodged into a wall at the Pentagon, or the debris left behind of the downed plane in Pennsylvania, I’m quite convinced that each of us has our own story to tell where we were at when all of these heartbreaking events took place.

Personally, I had to seek therapy shortly thereafter 9/11’s catastrophic events because I began to suffer from PTSD. Not only did an extended family member of mine pass away on that day because he was fatefully on Flight 11, but I also made a decision that day to drive from my home, which was in the Washington, D.C. area, down to the Pentagon just to prove to myself that what I saw on television was actually real. Seeing that plane on fire close up was something I’ll never be able to erase from my memory. Add in the fact that my NYPD cousin and I talked a number of times over that next week where he described some of what he pulled out of the rubble at the WTC site became way too much to bear by myself. And then there were also all those images on the news of the 200 or so people who jumped to their deaths from the WTC buildings that affected me far too greatly. But thankfully, I worked through that all and don’t suffer from 9/11/ PTSD anymore. Frankly, I find it surreal though to think that 16 years have gone by now since that terrible day.

I still feel like it was yesterday when all those awful events unfolded. But what I find even more surreal was how we all united in prayer and connected in peace for a short while back then. It didn’t matter during those first few days what race or religion or sexuality we were. We hugged each other. We cried with each other. We prayed with each other. And we did our best to unconditionally love each other. Why? Because we needed it. It was part of our healing process. I only wish that it had carried forward into all the years that followed. Unfortunately, it didn’t.

While we may not have experienced another tragedy like 9/11 since, we have had our share of senseless terror acts by various radical individuals, one as recent as that driver who rammed his car into a crowd that was demonstrating in Charlottesville, Virginia. People also seem to be angry all the time now, holding on to vicious resentments that often lead them into violent acts. I see so many individuals always pointing their fingers these days at who’s to blame for the lack of peace in their lives. I’m sure that’s why so many Muslims were targeted after 9/11 and suffered from a number of hate crimes.

People want peace and yet they continue to blame a certain group of people, or the government, or something outside of themselves for why they don’t have it. When indeed if they want to ever feel true peace and see things like 9/11 or any other violent act to disappear forever from their lives, it has to begin within.

True peace begins within each and every one of us. And it begins with total forgiveness. Holding on to anger over Al-Qaeda or ISIS terrorists and their brutal attacks or towards those who shoot up a school or a movie theater or run their car into a crowd or towards anyone who has done a terrible act towards another is pointless. It robs the individual of inner peace and only causes them to propel our world in the opposite direction through their anger and rage. Every terror act, every act of violence in our world, 9/11, it all begins with the lack of inner peace and an inability to find forgiveness towards someone or something. Thank God, I’ve found forgiveness for all those in this world I once harbored hatred towards because I truly am trying to do my part to cultivate a world of peace.

And while I may never forget things like 9/11, I at least can say I have peace surrounding the events of that day and all the other senseless terror acts that have happened ever since, solely because I continue to practice forgiving. It’s what I learned from Jesus, Mother Theresa, Gandhi, Martin Luther King Jr, and many other spiritual teachers. Hopefully one day, all of us will grasp that concept and realize that true peace really does begin within and it begins with total forgiveness of all, including ourselves…

Peace, love, light, and joy,
Andrew Arthur Dawson

 

I know the content of my blog isn’t for everyone. After all, I do write a lot about God, Christ, spirituality, faith, hope, and the like. Some have pegged me as religious zealot because of it, which ironically, if you really knew me, you’d know I’m so far from being that. Yet, I can see how one might assume that by taking my blog at face value.

What people don’t understand though is that I write about these things just to keep myself going, to keep myself believing, and to keep myself from going down the path my father went, which was taking his own life. You see without my writing, without my faith, and without my hope, I constantly see a world that’s empty and hurting and feel a drive to ever-search for the solution somewhere out there, which always left me feeling totally unsatisfied and dead inside. That’s why I’m choosing to write like I do, because when I do write about things like God or Christ or something spiritual, I always seem to feel better about myself and find enough strength and courage to keep going for one more day.

Nevertheless, I’ve noticed a trend in the past year from people who have become overly triggered by my writing. One that has resulted in me being unfriended by them on Facebook. When I’ve spoken to any of them, the answer was always the same, they were getting too polarized by my content, especially when it came to my faith and hope in a loving God. But I get it. There is so much pain and suffering out there and people don’t understand why God would allow that if God truly was an all-loving and all-powerful God. I think that’s probably why atheism is on the rise and why so many have no desire to hear about God anymore.

While I too am one of those who don’t understand why God allows so much suffering to continue to happen in our world, I have kept my faith, accepted it’s beyond my comprehension, and kept on believing that I’m being taken through some type of a refining process to make me a much Brighter being on this planet, which is precisely what usually doesn’t sit well with many who have read my articles. But what they don’t grasp is that holding on to this attitude is what has kept me going in a world that has felt so dam dark lately.

Regardless, if you ever find yourself being triggered by my blog in some negative way, understand that’s never my intention on any level. I am writing to survive in a world that doesn’t necessarily make sense to me and this is the only way I’ve learned how to do so. My father gave up on life, but I don’t have to, and my blog is a means to an end for that very reason.

Maybe in you knowing that now, you won’t unfriend me and instead choose to just unfollow me from your newsfeeds. And may you also know that I too have a heart and a soul just like you, both of which truly love you just like I believe my Higher Power still does as well, even if we never do figure out why He continues to allow our suffering to persist…

Peace, love, light, and joy,
Andrew Arthur Dawson

The following parable is one taken from a story passed along by the Sioux Indians. 

The Creator gathered all of Creation and said, 
“I want to hide something from the humans until they are ready for it. It is the realization that they create their own reality.”
The eagle said, “Give it to me, I will take it to the moon.”
The Creator said, “No. One day they will go there and find it.”
The salmon said, “I will bury it on the bottom of the ocean.”
“No. They will go there too.”
The buffalo said, “I will bury it on the Great Plains.”
The Creator said, “They will cut into the skin of the Earth and find it even there.”
Grandmother Mole, who lives in the breast of Mother Earth, and who has no physical eyes but sees with spiritual eyes,
said, “Put it inside of them.”
And the Creator said, “It is done.” 

This parable is one that truly sums up quite nicely much of what I’ve already talked about in many of my prior blog entries; that being that what so many of us seek outside of ourselves is actually something that can only be found deep within us. The problem is that it takes a lot of spiritual work to connect with that part of ourselves, which is precisely why so many tend to look everywhere else for fulfillment in this world. Hence the reason why so many latch on to some person, place, or thing outside of themselves for happiness and joy and end up getting caught in many dead-end paths, addictions, and greater suffering.

Personally, I wish it was super easy to find this inner fulfillment, but unfortunately, I’ve discovered over the years that connecting with the Holy Spirit, or what I’ve sometimes referred to as our Life-Giving Energy or Soul Force is something that requires a lot more of being still and sitting with my emptiness. And that’s exactly why so many tend to look elsewhere for satisfaction in life, because who’s ego really ever wants to be still and feel empty anyway?

Nevertheless, I’m inclined to believe that the Sioux Indians got it right in this story when they said that there is a gift our Creator left each of us. We just need to spend a little more time with ourselves, doing something like meditating or communing with nature to start discovering it. And trust me, when you do, it’s then you’ll finally begin to see that the answer isn’t out there and never has been, as it’s always been right there, in you…

Peace, love, light, and joy,
Andrew Arthur Dawson