In the debate over “United 93,” supporters and detractors of the Sept. 11 film tend to agree that Paul Greengrass has made a poweful and sensitive movie; disagreement has centered on whether it’s too soon for the country to re-encounter that tragic day on screen and whether this particular movie, however good it is as a movie, succeeds in helping us cope with and respond to the strong emotions we all feel from that day.

Mary Ann and Frederic Brussat–media editors of Spirituality & Health magazine, now producing their own website, Spirituality & Practice–present a third way of looking at the movie. In response to my own review of the film, Mary Ann emailed me to say, “You said that you couldn’t see how the movie furthers a conversation on important issues–and that it didn’t go below the surface. Fred and I decided that it was our responsibility to do that in our reaction to the film. The movie is a bit of a blank slate. We can write all kinds of things on it.”

And what the Brussats did with this difficult film was create a beautiful meditation. To quote just one piece of it:

It will be easy for those who hate
terrorists — hate the very fact
that terrorism exists — to hate
back after this shattering experience.
But instead they could see United 93
as a chance to practice empathy
and not hostility.

Read the entire meditation here.