Before You Asked Me To Save The World

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You Should Have Asked Me First If I Liked It The Way It Was!

This was a great line in xXx, staring Vin Diesel.

I love it not because I am an anarchist, extreme sports fanatic or really even attracted to Vin. My sweet husband is far better looking.

I love the line because it is a such a good window into how well we all prejudge others by ideals we set for ourselves.

Clearly, our understanding of the world had changed.

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And yet we hope, even after tragedy.

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We hope for heroes.
We want to believe that there are people born to save the world.

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If it came down to it, would we act in courage?
Would we make a decision to give our very best even if it meant physical harm?

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If we can not answer yes...
What then?

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Do we continue to let others carry our weight?
Let their families suffer more than ours?

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Five years after 9 11....
I hope it has made us as Americans more tender...
More understanding of the needs of others...
More patient when faced with adversity...

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Maybe we can not all be heroes...
Maybe we can be just better citizens, taking care of those with less.

Maybe we can just start with more friendly waves to people who don't look like us.

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Maybe we can remember a time before 9 11 when we had to pull together as a nation.

Maybe we can begin to live like comrades in arms no matter what the security level is that day...

No matter what news has us looking over our shoulders.

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And maybe, some of will get a chance to find out which of our neighbors are heroes.

And maybe, we will want to be in the trenches with them.