Rawling’s Journal (9/11/11)

I tried to eat tonight and as I stared into the pores of my plate I felt somehow undeserving of it. How anything I took in would be somehow gluttonous in light of what day it was. I wondered if I was alone in that regard, if there were others who perhaps weren’t guilty but were more reflective than they had been in a while, whether there were those out there who felt that their stake in the country transcended the economic. How close did they feel to their fellow countrymen? And do they think they have the power to change their country? Are they aware of that power? Do they really have it to begin with?

These are thoughts similar to those I felt when Osama was killed. Some sense of reflection that is hard to define but focuses heavily on our own stake in the world and in the country we live in, and on the meaning of the word ‘country’. I’ve thought increasingly about whether it is something that we must defend, some sacred angel that is greater than ourselves or instead merely the manifestation of our collective will and consciousness.

These thoughts lead me to God and the same principles in its definition. Is God indeed a higher being that watches over us in a fatherly, autocratic fashion; or is God instead what prospers and surrounds us all in the universal, collective recognition of our humanity and its precious beauty?

The day must arrive soon in which we all realize the extent of our power in the scope of both our country and our spirituality. Both are so closely intertwined in what they have come to symbolize and in what they have the opportunity to teach us. The key to the survival of both may lie solely in man’s devotion to his brother, and to himself. For both are beautiful and together form all that is necessary for his prosperity.