September 11th left many sad people in its wake, mourning the loss of life and feeling of security, and it also caused people to rethink ideals that they thought they would never question. It embittered those who wouldn't normally be bitter and planted hatred and anger into the hearts of those who wouldn't normally be angry or hateful. I learned this first hand.

It is easy to ignore the ignorant person whose reaction to September 11th is "Let's just 'nuke' 'm all!". Most people don't give such ridiculous comments a second thought: it thankfully goes in one ear and quickly out the other. But what about when a person whom one admires and even emulates says something that stems from a similar feeling of indignation, but makes a stronger case? In class one day, my favorite high school teacher, "Doc", softly and solemnly said, "After September 11th, I cannot believe that all people are inherently good. Terrorists want to kill you just because you live in America. They would if they had the chance. I do not know if I can believe that such people are good."

Maybe it is partially because of my Quaker background that I was so troubled by my teacher's words. The years of going to Meeting every Sunday, hearing that all men are equal in the eyes of God might have contributed to my confusion, growing up believing that all people have a form of divinity within them, and therefore deserve to be treated as such.

I was torn between what I thought I knew and what my teacher was telling me. I believed Doc when he told the class that commas cannot be used to separate two independent clauses. I believed him when he told us that Emily Dickinson's poem "Fly" is about the inevitability of death. But I could not and cannot believe that not all people are good. A Jane Scott quote that I once read during Meeting says, "We are called upon to love the loveless and the unlovable, to reach out to the racists and the torturers, to all those who hurt and damage, cripple and kill . . . They have harmed themselves, but not irredeemably." One does not have to be Quaker to see the merit in such words; one must only have an unconditional love of humanity, of all humanity. It is possible that one comes to believe in a principle more so after it has been challenged, because I still believe, more than ever, that all people are inherently good.