October 24, 2001

In late June, weary of another long year behind a desk, I headed toward Ring Lake Ranch, an ecumenical retreat and study center in northwest Wyoming. A week in the high desert country of the Wind River Range, with time for silence and solitude, sounded just about right. I’d heard that Quakers have as many words for silence as Eskimos do for snow, and that they speak of various “stillnesses” as silky, heavy, light, dead, electric, even noisy. For months I’d needed desperately to explore something of that wide spectrum of quietude.

Commentary since September 11 has produced a cognitive dissonance among Americans about Islam, the world’s second largest religious tradition. On the one hand, selected Muslim leaders declare that “Islam is a religion of peace” and President Bush asserts repeatedly that the U.S.

On September 11, a Presbyterian friend was visiting a Lakota community in South Dakota. Later she told about her experience in her church newsletter: “We had already learned enough of Sioux history so that, on that fateful Tuesday morning when the World Trade Center was hit, we couldn’t help but relate to the Sioux rage and frustration at broken treaties, massacred women and children, and sacred land usurped.”

Why september 11?” That question, said Israeli peace activist Uri Avnery, needs to be raised. “Preparations for the terrorist attack had been going on for years. Why did Osama bin Laden choose September, 2001 instead of a year ago, or [why not] wait until next year?”

Garry Trudeau’s long-running Doonesbury comic strip rarely spares the rod—or sharp pen—when satirizing presidents, cigarette companies and hardened conservatives. But he showed a soft spot with stronger-than-usual religious touches in his first newspaper strips dealing with the September 11 atrocities and their aftermath.

This is,” Chi Nguyen said, raising one hand and then the other, “because that is.” The retired surgeon, a native of Vietnam who lives in Boston, was explaining how Buddhism helped him and other members of a local Buddhist temple forgive those who viciously attacked the temple last year.