Reflections on 9/11

  For some of us, this day will never pass without sorrow. 
  It can never be forgotten. 
  Scrabbling for information. 
  An incredible lump of grief lodged in the chest. 
  A wordless agony as we watched the planes hit against the bright blue sky, the flames in the towers, the liquefying of the buildings, humans rushing from the site covered in the ashes (ashes of human beings, their writings, their work, their bodies).
  Each hour brought more pain.
  And then we saw the moving images of people celebrating the murders, as if this were an occasion to party, to shoot off your mouths and your guns in absolute glee at the murder of so many people.
  Such confusion, such fascination and such a disconnect from the reality of what was happening.
  What was real on television? 
  Was it a fiction or could it, this monstrous thing, really be happening? How could such hate succeed?
  Nine years later, our teenagers are too young to remember. "I remember my mom crying," one child might say, or, "They wouldn't let us watch tv at school. They canceled all our activities and we didn't know why."
  We didn't let the children watch the videos, over and over and over, of the weeping, the horror, the people falling from the buildings, choosing that over the flames. 
  We didn't let them watch because they couldn't distinguish that those acts were no longer happening; otherwise they would think they were still happening over and over and over, every time they saw it even though, in our adult minds, they did happen over and over and over.
  Then the MSM pulled the videos, and said we shouldn't mourn anymore. 
  To show the videos was inciting antipathy toward the countries of those who had perpetrated the crimes. 
  It was wasted time to think of it, we shouldn't go back in our minds, we should think only happy thoughts because with happy thoughts, there is no pain.
  But still, in the back of our minds, rang the phrase, "Let's roll!" and the American instinct to break from the decadent and decrepit lethargy of Europe lived again, to rise in strength and youth and determination, to break the bonds of an established hierarchy.
  Today we face new problems, along with the old ones.
  We face down people who reject the notion of American exceptionalism. Most grow weary of the longest war in our history, even while our young people continue to offer their lives in defense of what we believe.
  We have a leader who seems oddly dispassionate, disconnected from the populace. A leader who seems to utter more words of solidarity with those who would destroy us than those who love this country. Perhaps it is just perception; still, we wonder and, now and then, sneak truthful but suspicious answers in the living polls.
  How is he so oddly disconnected from our grief and pain? How is it that even a day like today seems to mean so little, that the teleprompters still need to be used and that the speech is so halting and uncertain?
  Only the hardest of hearts could ignore this day.
  Only the most casual of observers could eat a normal meal, pass a normal day, act as if nothing happened that day, September 11, 2001.
  Those of us who received a "call" that year or shortly after (you know who you are, those of you heard it) are awake now.
  It wasn't just that attack that prompted the call.
  It wasn't just the election of someone who does not appear to love this country more than the world.
  It wasn't racism, or classism, or jingoism that prompted the call.
  It was more.
  We don't really understand it ourselves, but we know we heard it then and we hear it now.
  The Republican party (where many of the tea partiers have made their presence known) has been taken over by the "crazies," the "flat out crazies," the "fruit loops," the "nuts," the "whackos," the "stooges" who also "don't like America very much."
  We're depicted on television, in movies, by newspapers and writers as bizarre aberrants.
  That would be us, the tea partiers, and you've heard more crazy names than that affixed to this loose group of people who have no connection other than love of country.
  Here we stand, in groups and alone around the country.
  We reject the attacks they've been throwing at us. We aren't Islamophobic, or racist, or sexist or too religious in terms of wanted to hurt others the way some religions do. 
  We do love God and country, family, neighbors. 
  So what y'all hear today needs to be measured out, weighed in context to what we know, whether by sight or faith.
  We know this grand experiment called America is the best country in the world, a rejection of the "great chain of being" that existed elsewhere at the time we floated over here is ships too small to house as many people as they did. 
  Commoners, laborers, indentured servants, those seeking religious freedom--we came from all corners of the earth, seeking freedom. Seeking God. Oh, yes, even Him we sought, whether we knew it or not, because the great promise of this great country was just beginning.
  We know God's hand has been on this country since its inception and, in accordance with our prayers, will continue to be.
  We know there are forces seeking to destroy it. 
  But we also know there are always people in this country who will stand up for it, no matter the age, who will defend it, who will die for it, whether we agree in various political arguments or not.
  The old man rises up, as does the woman. The youth rises, the black, the white, the American Indian. Some give incomes, some give limbs, some give lives.
  We rise, in defense of America, our treasure.
  Our hope.
  So we thank God this day for what he has done for us. 
  We thank him and praise him for what he continues to do.
  We have heard the call, and we respond.