By Cathy Guiles

Perspectives Co-Editor

I went to New York City for the first time on a Girl Scout trip when I was in fourth grade. It was a cloudy day, so foggy that the tops of the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center weren't visible to us on the ground. To my nine-year-old mind, it looked like God was protecting those buildings by covering them with clouds.

The second time I went to New York was on a family vacation several years later. As we drove into the city, my younger brother and sister (who had never been to New York before) craned their necks and shifted around in their seats, not to see the trade center, but to look for the Statue of Liberty.

I remember that when I think of how the statue still stood after the horrible events of September 11. Lady Liberty continued to stand with her torch and head held high, gaze fixed on the distance, unfazed by the clouds of smoke and debris behind her.

But people are not statues. We have emotions, all of which have been put on public display over the past three weeks. Some are good and healthy, like grief, sadness and even anger. But others, such as pride, arrogance, and hatred, will not help us recover from this situation. To do that, we must reexamine where our values and priorities lay.

On our unexpected day off last week, two of my roommates and I were walking from the house where we spent Thursday night to Eastown. As we walked down a residential street with most of the houses bearing American flags, we saw an Arab-American woman and her little girl get into their minivan. The girl looked at us suspiciously, and her mother didn't look at us at all. I turned to look at the house they had come from, and saw a Muslim woman wearing a hijab (head scarf) standing in the doorway. She smiled and waved to us, and made the baby in her arms wave too. We waved and smiled back.

I read an article in The Paper this past week in which the author blamed the terrorist attacks on, out of all people, the terrorists' American neighbors. Apparently, the hijackers lived in America for several years, and they still hated our country! What caused them to do that? Perhaps their neighbors were not loving enough and didn't give them any reason to appreciate America.

We clearly need to go one step further in order to truly love our neighbors as ourselves. A wave and a smile is a start, but it's not the end. Americans have earned our reputation for being arrogant. Let's not fall into that trap anymore, and instead, seek humility.

Americans have also earned our reputation for being materialistic, even in the face of adversity. When I went to Woodland Mall on Saturday, I saw certain stores putting their red, white, and blue merchandise up front, from sweaters at the Gap to tricolor rhinestone-studded belts at Claire's. As much as the economy concerns us, let's not turn back to our consumer mindset (which, experts speculate, is part of why some Arab countries despise us), but instead, take our focus and eyes off material possessions and put them back on God where they belong.

I have full confidence that God is looking over his world now, just as he shielded the World Trade Center in clouds on that day eleven years ago. But let's return the favor by looking to him for our comfort, wisdom, and renewal, and letting our faith determine our values.