Not Mourning

I used to ride the PATH from Jersey to the station underneath the Twin Towers. I celebrated my 22^nd birthday at Windows on the World. When I got lost somewhere in Manhattan, I could just look up, and the World Trade Center’s skyscrapers assured me of which way was south.

When I moved to Dallas, I would still fly back to New York City often. I knew I was home when the plane would coast over the tip of Manhattan, and I caught the rare bird's-eye view of the World Trade Center.

The first time I flew home, just two weeks post-9/11, I was wanded by security. (I would be constantly called out for frisking or “random” baggage checks for the next three years. My name is, after all, Arabic.) People sat frozen in their seats, white-knuckled, eyes closed. We did not fly over the site of the Twin Towers.

I felt disoriented. I worked my way down to the southern tip of Manhattan – but this time, I could tell where south was because of the smoke. The site continued to smolder. Surrounding skyscrapers, covered with ash, the gates, bus stops, windows, draped with American flags and scores of pictures of the disappeared. Brazen hawkers sold postcards of the Towers in flames. I wonder if anyone bought them.
I held my breath for as long as I could. I distinctly remember thinking that the air was too sacred to inhale because the dust and ash were all the remains of people. I talked to a local merchant who had been in the area for years; he was going out of business, but that wasn’t his chief concern. “I’ve seen things. Things no one should ever see.” His eyes looked watery. Glazed. Terrified.

Osama bin Laden is dead, and I am not mourning. I am relieved. I do not believe that it is against the tenets of Jesus for me to feel relief, just as I do not believe that it is suitable to mimic the mob-like post-murderous glee that I have seen modeled by Al Qaeda or the Taliban.

According to statistics, 3000 people perished on September 11, 2001, and 47,000 troops have been killed or injured in the subsequent war on terrorism. It’s Christian to talk about bin Laden’s soul, and he was made in the image of God. So were the 50,000 Americans that he infected through terrorism. So are the many thousands of people who every day must live with bin Laden’s Al Qaeda legacy like a foot on their backs.

I’m still struggling with the Christian response to hearing of bin Laden’s death. I certainly don’t feel like justice was done, because his death won’t bring back the many lives lost and damaged in the mission to squelch his movement. And hearing Christians openly relish his eternity in hell – eternity – just cheapens the gospel and the grave consequences sin holds for any of us. Hell is not a punchline, nor does it make for a clever status update. Sorry, friends. Don’t mock the sacrifice of Jesus for me, for you, for humanity, by making light of a man’s damnation.
But…I am not mourning. I know someone is missing Osama bin Laden today; but it isn’t me.