Day 5 - A final word
01/9/15 5:29 PM Last night
in Washington Square Park, we held our candles and moved silently,
sadly, gently. We sang. Someone would start, some familiar song,
and others would join in. "America the Beautiful,"
"Lean On Me," "My Country 'Tis of Thee,"
and even the George M. Cohan songs, "I'm a Yankee Doodle
Dandy" and "It's a Grand Old Flag." Someone started
out in another song from World War I, "Over There,"
but a young woman shouted out a plea to stop. She was right.
It's much too aggressive, perfectly appropriate when "the
Yanks were coming" to save France from the Kaiser, but right
now, we're not sure even where "over there" is.
It was almost a religious experience,
a feeling of community. That is the one good thing that religion
can give us, the feeling of community. When it is cut loose from
those moorings, or when it defines its community so narrowly
that excludes those who think differently, religious belief is
very dangerous. It is impossible imagining the suicide pilots
of Tuesday doing what they did if they had not believed in a
God who would reward them. And now I see that one of our own
compatriots, another religious man, the Rev. Jerry Falwell, has
taken exactly the same line as Osama Bin Laden: That the destruction
of the twin towers and the Pentagon, and all the attendant loss
of life, were God's punishments for our sins.
Some people find comfort in believing
that there is an all-seeing, all-understanding Father. I don't
want to deny anybody whatever source of comfort they can imagine,
but to me, such a belief seems to be just a way to avoid responsibility.
I'm proud to be a human, not a puppet; a responsible adult, not
a child depending on someone else's greater wisdom. But once
you abandon the fantasy of an all-powerful Father, humanity is
a terrible responsibility. Making the world better, or worse,
is entirely up to us.
The men who hijacked the jetliners
on Tuesday have not gone to Paradise. They have not gone to Hell.
They have just ceased to be. And so have all the people whose
lives they ended. What survive are the impacts they all made,
in their very different ways, on the continuing process of our
human race. It is up to us, the living, to see that this world
does not become a hell.
Here is a poem from Susana Torre,
the person who was at my side as we watched Tower 2 explode and
implode.
WTC 010911 9:15 AM
We clasped hands
And jumped
Together
In another life
I would love him
Would transform the heat of this hand
Into words of assurance
Into deeds of commitment
How cloudless is the sky
How cold it is
As we fall
Day
1 - The first impact
| Day 2 -
The city stilled |
Day
3 - A cloud and pleas | Day 4 - Back to work
| Day 5 -
A final word