OS hardly knows where to begin. How to put in words this scene, hearing the names of the murdered intoned by the survivors, many of them young teenaged children who lost parents while in infancy? How to describe the tears of the family members touching the names of their loved ones engraved around the fountain, taking pencil rubbings of those names--something tangible to take home with them, a tiny piece of what had been stolen from them by vicious evil people half a world away? How to describe the pain and pride in the voices of those who read the names, adding their own memorials?
Well, of course, words fail-at least any words this poor schlub could compose.
But, blessedly, that Moment of Grace arrived, that moment of clarity when the heavens opened, and comforting insight arrived.
Just after Mayor Bloomberg spoke, Yo-Yo Ma played a movement from one of the Bach Cello Suites. Time stood still, as he both played and listened in that strange state of transport that sometimes occurs when the performer himself seems to disappear. It was just Bach, a tiny moment of the music of the spheres, picking up where words fall to impotent silence.
And the insight arrived: The dead-end religion and cultures that produced the monsters that committed these murders are incapable of producing a Bach, or a Yo-Yo Ma, or a cello. They can't create anything resembling a culture worth preserving, and they are actively about the job of destroying what little they do have. Even the archeology that preserves what we know of their history is an invention of the West. They can burn the world down around them, but they can't create anything. They don't look forward, because they can't. They can only refight wars of centuries ago, and bathe the world in blood.
So, here we are, ten years later. As Bonhoeffer noted in Christmas 1942, ten years is a long time:
As time is the most valuable thing that we have, because it is the most irrevocable, the thought of any lost time troubles us when we look back. Time lost is time in which we have failed to live a full human life, gain experience, learn, create, enjoy and suffer...These last years have certainly not been like that Our losses have been great and immeasurable, but time has not been lost.
The names continue to be read. The music continues to play, Bach on the cello and violin, guitar, Amazing Grace on the flute (talk about something Islam can never produce!), James Taylor singing 'You Can Close Your Eyes', Paul Simon singing 'Sound of Silence', string quartets, and memorials continue to be read at a beautiful memorial, raised from the ashes of unspeakably evil acts. The West can do this. Islam can't, because it won't, because it can't, because it won't.
It is a blessing that the SEALs did send Osama bin Laden to his reward, in the manner they did, that the Navy had the privilege of firing the shots that dispatched him. Justice served provides comfort to the bereaved, and puts the world on notice that we can are patient, and people like him will never escape.
So, what now?
If we'll step back and look, we see the world of Islam burning itself down, from Algeria to Pakistan and beyond. It's tempting to say, 'Good. Serves 'em right, let 'em burn.', but there's a bigger thought to express in that direction: You are free to burn yourselves down, we won't stand in your way. When you've had enough, you may with to consider the twin gifts of the West, those being Christianity and the Enlightenment. In the meantime, the only part of the world you get to burn down is yours. Look us up when you've had enough.
OS has a personal list of ThingsToDo in honor of this tenth anniversary, some of which he has began to undertake.
He's playing golf with his friends, and will do a lot more of that, because he wants to build friendships for the next decades.
He's making sure his kids knows he's outrageously proud of them. Because he is.
He's making sure the Sainted Mrs. OS knows she's loved and honored. Because she is the very best person he has ever known.
He's going to continue to encourage young women to pursue their educations and lives, because Islam hates and degrades women, and Christ loves and dignifies them.
He's going to create in his own voice, because it's the one God gave him.
And, today, especially in honor of the day, he's going to do two specific things:
1. He's going to play music, especially the music of Bach, because the fundamentalist monsters of Islam hate music.
2. He's preparing pork roast for dinner, because he knows that would piss off Osama Bin Laden.
God bless us every one, and God bless and preserve the United States of America.
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