Remembering...

Some things are beyond words.
Beyond comprehension.
Beyond forgivness.
Peaple ask : "Where were you ?! How could you let this happen ?!"

How do you say we didn't know? We couldn't know.
We couldn't imagine.

Only madmen could contain the thought, execute the act, fly the planes.
The sane world will always be vulnerable to Madmen, because we cannot go where they go to conceive of 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.

Even those we thought are enemies are here.
Because some 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 even 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.



Ordinary men.
Ordinary women.
Made extraordinary by acts of compassion.
And courage.
And terrible sacrifice.

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 annonce that somehow we had this coming.
We reject them both in the knowledge that our tragedy is greater than the sum of our trangressions.

Bodies in freefall in the evening news.
Madness in mosques, shouting down fourteen centuries of earnest prayers, forgetting the lessons of crusades past....that the most harmed are the least deserving.

There are no words.
There are no words.
The death of innocents and the death of innocence.
Rage compounded upon rage. Rage enough to blot out the sun.


What do we tell the chidren?
Do we tell them that evil is a foreign face?
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?
No. They will have nightmares enough.

Perhaps we tell them that we are sorry.
Sorry that we were not able to deliver unto them the world we wished them to have.
That our eagerness to shout is not the equal of our willingness to listen.
That the burdens of distant people are the responsibility of all men and women of conscience or their burdens will one day become our 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 DVDs, 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 could not see it coming.
No one could.
We could not stop it.
No one could.
But we are here. Now. With you.
Today. Tommorow. And the day after.
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 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.

When you move, we will move with you.
Where you go,we will go with you.
Where you are, we are in you.
Because the future belongs to ordinary men and ordinary women, and that future must be built free of such acts as these, must be fought for and renewed like fresh water.
Because a message must be sent to those who mistake compassion for weakness.
A message sent across six thousand years of recorded blood and struggle.
And the message is this:
Whatever our history, whatever the root of our surnames, we remain a good and decent people, and we do not bow down and we do not give up.
The fire of the human spirit cannot be quenched by bomb blasts and body counts.
Cannot be intimidated forever into silence or drowned by tears.
We have endured worse before; we will bear this burden and all that come hereafter, because that is what ordinary men and women do.
No matter what.
This has not weakened us.
It has only made us stronger.

In recent years we as a people have been tribalized and factionalized by a thousand casual undkindnesses.
But in this we are one.
Flags sprout in uncommon places, the ground made fertile by tears and shared resolve.
We have become one in our grief.
We are now one in our determination.
One as we recover.
One as we rebuild.

You wanted to send a message, and in so doing you awakened us from our self-involvement.
Message Received.
Look for your reply in the thunder.
In such days as these are heroes born.
The true heroes of the twenty-first century.
You, the human being singular.
You, who are nobler than you know and stronger than you think.
You, the true heroes of this chosen moment, chosen out of history.

We stand blinded by the light of your unbroken will.
Before that light, no darkness can prevail.
They knocked down two tall towers.
In their memory, draft a covenant with your conscience, that we will create a world in which such things need not occur.
A world which will not require apologies to children, but also a world whose roads are not paved with the husks of their inalienable rights.
They knocked down two tall towers.
Graft now their echo onto your spine, become girders and glass, stone and steel, so that when the world sees you, it sees them.
And stand tall.
Stand tall.
Stand tall.

--J. Michael Straczynski