PDA

View Full Version : 9/11 defines HOPE


Judy Hamilton
28th October 2006, 07:46 AM (07:46)
The messsage below is a poignant
reminder of the truth of these words
inscribed on the Statue of Liberty

No man is an island
No man stands alone
Each mans' joy is joy to me
Each man's grief is my own
We need one another
So I will defend
Each man as my brother
Each man as my friend

Religious leaders of all faiths participated ago on Sunday, September 23, 2001 in a prayer service at Yankee Stadium honoring the victims of the September 11 terrorist attacks. Especially moving was the speech of Rabbi Marc Gellman. Here are some excerpts:

"The real horror of that day lies not in its bigness but in its smallness. In the small, searing death of one person, 3,000 times over. And that one person was not a number. That person was our father, or our mother, or our son, or our daughter, or our grandpa, or grandma, or brother, or sister, or cousin, or uncle, or aunt, or friend, or lover, our neighbor, our co-worker, the woman who delivered our mail, or the man who put out the fire, or the man who arrested the bad guys in our town. And the death of each and every one of them alone would be worthy such a gathering and such a grief .... " "... Our sages taught that when one kills one person, it is like killing the whole world altogether, and when one saves a single person, it is like saving the whole world altogether. Last week over 3,000 worlds were killed, and thank the Lord a few, far too few, worlds were saved by heroes most of whom will never be known. The dimensions of this horror only become fully drawn when we enter each murdered world, one world,one person, one family at a time .... " "... I want to say to those who cannot find hope through faith I say to you that you too are also part of this bundle. For the important task in our spiritual journey, is not for all of us to agree that the name for hope is God. The main task now is to agree that hope was not one of the worlds destroyed that day -- the day when 3,000 people did not die, but the day when one person died 3,000 times."

Judy Hamilton
28th October 2006, 08:22 AM (08:22)
The Lady

I wonder what she thought
as she stood there, strong and tall.
She couldn't turn away.
She was forced to watch it all.

Did she long to offer comfort
as her country bled?
With her arm forever frozen
high above her head.

She could not shield her eyes.
She could not hide her face.
She just stared across the water,
keeping freedom's place.

The smell of smoke and terror
somehow reduced her size.
So small within the harbor,
but still we recognized...

How dignified and beautiful
on a day so many died .
I wonder what she thought...
and I know she must have cried.