Thursday, September 11, 2003
9/11.
Some things are beyond words.
Beyond comprehension.
Beyond forgiveness.
How could you say we didn't know?
We couldn't know.
We couldn't imagine.
The sane world will always be vulnerable to madmen,
because we cannot go where they go to concieve such things.
We could not see it coming. We could not be here before it happened. We could not stop it.
But we are here now.
You cannot see us for the dust, but we are here.
You cannot hear us for the cries, but we are here.
Even those we thought our enemies are here. Because some things surpass rivalries and borders.
Because the story of humanity is written,
not in Towers but in
tears.
In the common coin of blood and bone.
In the voice that speaks within the worst of us, and says THIS IS NOT RIGHT.
Because even the worst of us, however scarred, are still human.
Still feel.
Still mourn the random death of innocents.
We are here.
But with our masks and false appearances we are writ small by the true heroes.
Those who face fire without fear or armour.
Those who step into the darkness without assurances of ever walking out again, because they know there are others waiting in the dark.
Awaiting Salvation.
Awaiting Word.
Awaiting Justice.
Ordinary Men.
Ordinary Women.
Made extraordinary by acts of compassion.
And courage.
And terrible sacrifice.
"We've voted, and we're going to try to take the plane.
It's the only way to stop them hitting Washington.
I love you."
Ordinary Men.
Ordinary Women.
Refusing to surrender.
Ordinary Men.
Ordinary Women.
Refusing to accept the self-serving proclamations of holy warriors of every stripe,
who announce that somehow we had this coming.
We reject them both in the knowledge that our tragedy is greater than the sum of our transgressions.
Bodies in the freefall in the evening news.
Madness is mosques, shouting down 14 centuries of earnest prayers, forgetting the lessons of crusades past -
That the worst harmed are the least deserving.
There are no words.
There are no possible words.
The death of innocents,
The death of innocence.
Rage compounded upon rage, rage enough to blot out the sun.
And the air
filled with questions.
They ask the question. Why? Why?
My God, WHY?
I have seen other worlds, other spaces.
I have walked with God and
wept with angels.
But, to my shame, I have no answers.
He is the only one who knows.
I just can't imagine.
What do we tell the children?
Do we tell them evil is a foreign place?
No.
The evil is the thought behind the face, and it can look just like yours.
Do we tell them evil is tangible, with defined borders and names and geometries and destinies?
No.
They will have nightmares enough.
Perhaps we will tell them that we are sorry.
Sorry
that we were unable to deliver unto them a world we wished them to have.
That our eagerness to shout is not the equal of our eagerness to listen.
That the burdens of distant people are the responsibility of all men and women of conscience,
or our burdens will one day become their tragedy.
Or perhaps we simply tell them that we love them, and that we will protect
them. That we would give our lives for theirs and do it gladly, so great is
the burden of our love.
In a universe of Gameboys and VCRs, it is, perhaps, an insubstantial gift. But it is the only one that will wash away the tears and knit the wounds
And make
the world a sane place to live in.
We live in each blow you strike for infinite justice, but always in the hope of
infinite wisdom.
Because we live as well in the quiet turning of your considered conscience.
The voice that says all wars have innocents.
The voice that says you are a kind and a merciful people.
The voice that says do not do as they do, or the war is lost before it is even
begun.
Do not let that knowledge be washed away in blood.
Shu at 9:13 PM
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