I remember the days after 9/11.

I remember the long days in front of the church, just talking with people. Holding their hands. Praying with them. Sharing their grief and their confusion.

I remember the long nights, in restaurants and bars, talking with strangers as we all tried to understand what had happened and what was happening.

And I remember being so angry.

Early on the morning of 9/11 I met with a young Chinese-American couple who were planning their wedding. It was our first or second meeting. He had a job in the financial industry, and after our meeting he took a subway downtown to his office. But he didn’t get there.  On his way down, a plane flew into the World Trade Center and his subway train stopped in its tracks.

A few months later, I remember presiding at his wedding. I remember the elaborate reception afterwards, that included a traditional Chinese tea ceremony and a multi-course meal comprised of dead animals I could not identify. I remember thinking at the moment, as this couple began their new life together, that this was the way to respond to terrorism: to continue living, to embrace each other, to trust in the fundamental goodness of life, even with the bad parts. This wedding, and the countless other little ways that we mark the moments of our lives, were small forms of resistance. It was a way of saying “our intentions have not been inturrepted.”

I thought that 9/11 presented us with an opportunity to do something different. I thought we had a chance as a nation to respond to terror in the only way terror can truly be defeated. I honestly hoped that we would return the terror with a new resolve to be agents of peace throughout the world. As the drum beats for war increased their volume, I realized that war was not the answer, but war was inevitable.

I can’t help but wonder what would be different if we had made different choices over the past ten years. What might we have done if we had invested in something other than two ill-conceived wars?

The worst thing about terrorism is what it does to your soul. It shakes your faith in your basic safety. It inspires you to lash out. It makes you feel unsure, like you can’t trust the world. This is the poison that seeped into our hearts on 9/11. And we have made the entire world feel our pain.

When 9/11 happened, I remember thinking one thing: Stop! Stop this violence! Stop this destruction! Just make it all stop! I didn’t want revenge. I didn’t even want justice. I just wanted it all to stop. And I couldn’t help but think that for other people in other lands, where events like 9/11 happen on a regular basis, where war is just a way of life, that their suffering and fear must have become part of their souls. And maybe this was a moment for me to feel what that felt like.

I am still afraid. And I am still angry. I’m angry mostly for what we have become, for what we let this terror do to us. I’m angry because we didn’t resist it, we succumbed, and we turned the wheel of violence and passed it on to distant lands and people we don’t know. I hope someday the wheel turns back around to someone – or some people – who have the strength of character and the power of faith to stop the wheel from turning again. I wonder where such people might be, or how such people might become our leaders. I wonder how long we must wait for it all to stop.