Today we when we brought our hands to prayer in front of our hearts and were asked to set an intention, the instructor suggested we go beyond ourselves. I have started to feel a little selfish in my practice. Almost every class I have set an intention about myself. About feeling more joy, about being more grounded, about being able to just be in the space I am now. It has frequently been about me. I think I needed that for the first several classes. I went into this journey out of a need for self-care and reflection.

Today, with her urging, my intention has changed. It is important go outside yourself and Sunday night, while I was relaxing, watching Brothers and Sisters, ABC interrupted my programming for a special announcement. It has ben almost ten years since the attacks on the trade towers and the pentagon. Almost ten years of fighting a war I’m not sure we understand.

As I sat and watched the TV that night and as events unfolded in the following days I had a jumble of thoughts and feelings about what is all meant. All over the country people were gathering to celebrate his death. In my own hometown, in a town center named after Rosa Parks (someone through whom non-violent protest brought change) that was designed by Maya Lin (the women who also designed the Vietnam War Memorial) a party was thrown. It was all starting to make me a little sick. People who weren’t guzzling beers, waving flags and chanting U.S.A were deemed unpatriotic. I love my country. I don’t think I would be living the life I am living if I were not a citizen of this country. But I could not wrap my head around celebrating a death. No matter how terrible the person, no matter the horrible things he did, I cannot hoot and holler and rejoice in the violent death of another person.

As this week wore on it was clear that I was not the only one with these feelings. I found relief in articles published, outcries on social media sites and discussions with friends and family. In an article on NPR the Roman Catholic Church responded to the event with "Faced with the death of a man, a Christian never rejoices, but reflects on the serious responsibility of everyone before God and man, and hopes and pledges that every event is not an opportunity for a further growth of hatred, but of peace."

I’m not a particularly religious person. I have faith in… something… and though I have a hard time with organized religion sometimes the Catholic Church gets it so, so right.

See the NPR Article