I got the message early, standing on the roof of our house as a boy, holding a garden hose and helping my father water down the wooden shingles as a huge fire burned all around us, the air black and full of cinders. And later, as earthquakes ejected me from the shower or shook the contents of my house into a heap. Huddling in the core of a hallway as a hurricane bore down. Holding a rag to my face on 9/11 so I wouldn’t inhale the pulverized dust of the World Trade Center as I ran through the streets of Manhattan.

I got the message: no one is safe.

We all want to be safe; it’s at the core of what it means to be human. We want safety for ourselves, for our loved ones. And yet it’s an illusion, safety. It’s temporary. Our passage into this world is dangerous, our time here is fraught with violence and threat, and our inevitable exit causes pain to ourselves and those we love. So we need to remind ourselves that safety is not the highest value.

I don’t want to be safe. I want to be strong. I want to be strong enough to know I can look into a fire or earthquake or hurricane without flinching. I want to be strong enough to look straight into the eyes of someone who does not love me and be unmoved. I want the peace of knowing that whatever happens, I’ll be alright because while I was here and while the power was in me, I stayed true to myself and did my best and loved the people I love with my whole heart.

I don’t want safety. I want wisdom. I want to have wisdom enough to see that the desire for revenge and more violence are deeply powerless stances, no matter how “tough” they look on the outside. I want wisdom enough to acknowledge that terror and violence reside in my own heart… and while I can’t eradicate them there any more than I can eradicate them from the world, I can overcome them. Time and again. Though false ideas of loss and indignity and offense keep coming back and fanning the flames of my own resentment and anger and hatred, I can put those flames out. Somewhere inside me I have the wisdom to know that’s all I can do that will make any real difference. Really living peace and love… not just saying the words, but living them when your soul cries out for justice and meaning and there doesn’t seem to be any… these are heroic acts.

The world seems to fall apart with increasing frequency. The world outside me, and the one in my head. What can I do about it, today or any other day when it seems so hopeless? Only the small, little heroic things that we all can do, the only things that matter in the end. Put out the flames. Sweep up the debris. Walk back out into the sunshine. Hand the rag I’m using to cover my mouth to someone else who hasn’t got one. Put my arm around somebody who’s even more broken than I am. Tell them No one is safe… but you’re safe with me.