Today is always a raw day for me, but this year I have a distraction with the new job. In the meantime, the
Dallas Morning News posted the following that I had written for their
Voices section:
Are you waving your flag? Today is Sept. 11, and I wave the flag today out of respect for my first-responder brothers in New York who died that morning racing up steps when others were running away.
Twelve years ago, I responded to the Pentagon after a unit from the fire department reported a plane down and heavy black smoke. I had a front-row seat to hundreds of deaths that day.
I’m a paramedic by both profession and avocation, so I’m not squeamish. When death happens, the talking heads talk and most of us watch, but not everyone. Some people act.
I have watched 9/11 be used by this group or that to make their political cases — for a bigger Transportation Security Administration, a more heavy-handed National Security Agency, for protections for Muslims, or whatever cause célèbre.
I watch as members of the media fall all over themselves to cover these machinations, and I think about a comment a friend made recently: We slobber all over the charismatic — the great stories — but not the good stories where people are doing important work without making it a show. It’s the workhorse vs. show horse argument.
Thirty years ago, when three homeless men in Dallas died after sleeping in large trash bins, many were horrified. But rather than lamenting their deaths and going about his own life, Jerry Hill, an Episcopalian priest, started asking how to help the homeless.
His was not a mission for cameras and applause, but he kept going anyway. Again and again, he kept going because he wanted to provide a safe place for those who were left behind on the street. He wanted no accolades or honors, but rather to provide a shelter where he could show his care for his brothers.
Like the fire service that works as a unit and as your second family, Hill enlisted the assistance of businessmen, other clergy and the community at large for what became the Austin Street Shelter. He built a team that consisted of people trying to make a positive difference. The shelter might be considered a testimony to one man’s quest to do a little good.
The apple, of course, doesn’t fall far from the tree. Hill’s son, Marty, is just as involved in the community. He is developing a center to help women with addictions.
In both cases I think of the race — or marathon — these men are running, trying to outpace such overwhelming forces.
When I think of 9/11, I think of Jerry and Marty Hill. I also think of Bob Schiavone, a former New York firefighter who now manages high school programs for adults in Los Angeles. The flag he waves is for the challenges he is fighting today, and he does so quietly, respectfully.
These men remind me of former Archbishop Desmond Tutu, who said, “Do a little bit of good wherever you are; it’s those little bits of good put together that overwhelm the world.”
When you wave flags this week, I hope you will think about how you can be of service to your community. What tragedy, big or small, can you help lessen? There are flags to be waved, but they should wave with dignity for the races yet to be run, races in your community.
Are you up for it?
For now, I hope those lost will be mourned and remembered and that we are each up for the next task at hand.
So my most recent Dallas Morning News column got posted. While I normally post the text within my blog, I would love it if you wander over to the DMN site and read it there. I guess I am being bad and hoping for an extra few hits for my editor to take notice of from my loyal readers.
