Friday, September 11, 2009
9/11/01: There are no words
It is incomprehensible to me, still.
Eight years later, and I still can not take it all in: the memory of the images. The sounds. The smells.
I don't know why it is, exactly, but I am always caught by surprise and taken up short by the enormity of sadness in my heart. There are no words - no prayers - no sound I can make.
I simply lift my eyes and my heart to the heavens.
Later this evening, I will give the benediction at the 9/11 Memorial here in Chatham. This town lost 13 people.
I pray I will find some words for those who have gathered - the parents, the wives the children - to remember their loved ones who died that day, nine years ago. To offer some words of hope and solace and peace.
Right now, there simply are no words. Only the numbers "9/11". Only memories of what is still incomprehensible.
In moments like these, perhaps it is best to simply let music and poetry carry our prayers. Our sadness. Our fears. Our hopes.
In this clip, Leonard Slatkin Conducts the BBC Orchestra on September 15 2001 in honor of those who lost their lives a few days prior. The visuals are from BBC's 'Last Night of the Proms' and ABC's 'Report from ground zero.
I offer it as my meditation on the 9th Anniversary of "9/11", with thanks to Marcia.
Because, there simply are no words.
Because it is still incomprehensible.
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5 comments:
My first association with this piece of music is from the movie Platoon. Then, as now, it evokes the basic question of an ancient mystery: the why of needless and senseless loss. The faces in this reflect what I think you describe: a stunned, incomprehensible response to what has taken place. You are right, it is still incomprehensible. It still stuns and leaves speechless. It still breaks the heart and tears at the soul. If there is any comfort perhaps it is that we are joined together in our sadness, our loss, our heartbreak and interruption of breath, just as this day interrupted life. There are no words. Only deep, stirring sadness.
How someone could harbor such evil, such hatred, and could perpetuate such misery on other people is incomprehensible Madre Lizabet.
We will never understand. That kind of malevolence is a cancer. Best to be cut out and sent into oblivion, where it hopefully could not affect us again.
I only wish for us all that George Bush and his administration had not been in office. They returned evil for evil in their own unspeakable ways, and we shall all pay for it for the rest of our lives.
I alwayd loathed that music before. Now it can reduce me to tears.
Today I've gone about my business, sitting in a lot of meetings taking notes, writing "Sept 11, 2009" at the top of the page several times. And I've been in a shiteful mood while at the same time feeling half conscious. Because of course today is the anniversary of the day that an unimaginable and seemingly endless cycle of evil was unleashed. Oh yeah...funny how that can slip our minds.
My word is "untembl"
Thank you. Oh that music.
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