[Angels use a variety of means to touch our souls. If they can use numbers, they can certainly use the pure hearts of little children. Following is one such story.]

We moved into our new home on the Saturday after September 11, 2001. Our son, Matthew, was seven at the time. The horrible images of the passenger jets slamming into the World Trade Center were being shown repeatedly on TV.

My son has a condition known as oral-motor dyspraxia. He was extremely speech delayed as a child. And of course there are associated problems with his condition like ADHD and academic difficulties. Nevertheless, Matthew does not see himself as different and is quite engaging, as well as amazingly kind and compassionate. My wife and I named him Matthew because the Hebrew meaning of the name is "Gift from God." He has demonstrated amazingly intelligence, scoring off the chart in areas not traditionally accessed by educational institutions. All his teachers recognize his gifts. Matthew is now nine and in fourth grade. His speech has progressed incredibly over the past two years.

On this particular day, the TV news was showing the attack on the Twin Towers again. I turned off the television, not wanting to be reminded of the horror. Matthew, in all his innocence, looked at me and asked, "Daddy, did the people in the planes go to a good place?" I said, "Yes, Matthew, they went to a good place."

I could tell he was thinking so I asked him, "What about the 'bad guys'? (Referring to the terrorists in a way he could understand) Do you think they went to a good place?" Matthew became quiet, and a beautiful boyish innocence seemed to envelope him. He calmly looked through me, as though in a trancelike state, and answered matter-of-factly, "Yes, but God needed to teach them a lesson." And I asked him, "What lesson did God need to teach them, son?" And Matthew, without missing a beat or seeming to even think about the answer, said simply, "There is no fear."

I was left breathless at the depth and meaning of that answer. Of course that's true. When you strip all the religious pretenses away from terrorist motives, in the end what you have left is fear. And to say that those who chose the path of terrorism can still inherit the kingdom comes from a wisdom that transcends all our punishment/reward-based religious systems.

When we really ponder the meaning of fear in the light of God's all-encompassing, non-judgmental love, we realize that fear is an illusion. Fear is the absence of love. However, that definition is self-contradictory, since there is no such thing as an absence of love at any step in our eternal existence. Even the terrorists were loved while they were acting in the most evil manner possible. Evil, like fear, eventually will pass away, because it is based on an illusion, that there can be an absence of love. And I learned all this because of a profound, inspired statement by a seven-year-old boy: "There is no fear."

Anonymous
Respond to john@beyondreligion.com

Posted 11-15-03