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blue bits. red rocks.
Monday 30 August 2010
I am like you

In March 2003 I boarded a plane at LAX and flew to the country where my father took his last breath. It was there at the marketplace in Hoi An that I met a Vietnamese fellow who said to me, “I am like you.”

“In what way?” I asked.

“I, too, lost my father to that war.”

Prior to that encounter, I had not allowed myself to think of the Vietnamese children and the sufferings they had endured. Afterwards, I have looked upon every Vietnamese person as my brother, my sister, my mother, my father, my friend.

I think of them first and foremost when I think of the war in which my father died. I think of how the bodies of their soldiers were piled in heaps alongside the roadways, too numerous to bury. I think of how their widows never received any government benefits for their husbands’ deaths. I think of how these women prostituted themselves just to be able to feed their sons and daughters. I think of the European and American businessmen who allowed these women and girls to be exploited that way.

I think of the field near Dragon Mountain where Vietnamese locals watched as I built a rock memorial to honor my father. They couldn’t understand the words I spoke but I hope they understood the grace that had led me there to them.

I pray for the families who lost loved ones at Ground Zero.  I pray they come to understand what the Vietnamese taught me – that the best memorial we can build to our loved ones is not made out of concrete or stone but out of mercy and grace.  

I can’t think of any better way to do that than to build a house of worship because there is no greater answer to the hatred that fueled 9-11 than the voices of people united in prayer and praise.

Don’t stop with the mosque, build a house of worship on every block near Ground Zero. Then the demons can sit back and watch the angels dance.

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