America, I Want to Believe in You.

Fourteen years ago, when those towers fell, it didn’t matter what religion you were, if you were hurting, we were there. If you were weeping, we were holding you. If your child was in need, we ran to help him/her.

We didn’t care if you were Muslim, Jew, or Atheist, if you were bleeding, we were carrying you.

Because that’s who we were and that’s what we did. As a people, that’s who we were created to be.

And I want to believe that’s who we still are. I want to believe that beneath all the back biting and religious slandering, we are still a people who care deeply about our fellow humans. That when something bad happens to one or two or ten thousand of us, we run, not walk, to help. That we come with our trucks and our hearts and our water, and we bring our best intentions.

Because we care.

I want to believe that behind all the hate and bigotry and lashing out in my news feed, that we are still a people that love enough to put our differences aside and pull together for the common good of another, no matter the color of their skin, or which god they believe in.

I trust that we still want to help each other. Grieve. Rebuild. Laugh again. And that we won’t wait for another mass tragedy to show our true colors.

I want to believe that we are strong and that we won’t wait for another building, or plane, or train to blow up, to show the world what we’re really made of.

I believe that we will do it today. Right now. That we will put down the guns we have picked up and reach out to our Islamic neighbor, or to the abortion doctor, who lives down the street.

That we will lay down our religious right-ness and our political correct-ness, and hug someone across the aisle, or across the world, who has need.

I want to believe that we will stop long enough, in our arguing and fighting, to look into the eyes of our opponent, and see a real human. One who cries and bleeds for the same things we do.

That we will give grace and bestow honor, even if we don’t agree.

And that when all is said and done we will be the city and the country and the people that changed everything.

I want to believe that we are still America, the beautiful, the blessed, the free.

Not because we have money, or weapons, or power, or enough churches, or missiles, or enough of anything.

But because we have love.