It Is A Matter Of Time
TODAY IS A DAY THAT HAS BECOME WRAPPED IN SADNESS.
I can understand how that can be, but I choose to not give in to that. There is enough sadness in the other 364 days, more than enough to make anything on this date – excuse the expression – overkill.
Instead of spending today in what has become a sort of morose celebration I have made a personal decision to take the memory of the events and aftermath of 2001 and put them all into a long term perspective. A very long term perspective.
Things happen in Time. Time has been going on for quite awhile now – long before you or I showed up on the scene. God willing and the Creek don’t rise, it will continue on for a few years longer. We may not be around until the bitter end of Time, but Time doesn’t care.
As I said, things happen in (Big T) Time, not in lifetimes. Today, eighteen years after the fact, people still react in horror at what happened. People died, but more people survived. For that there should be some Joy in addition to the sadness and anger.
In the long range span of Time “9/11” is, was, and will be little more than a rough spot on the surface of History. The ravage of the Plague on Europe killed tens of millions and, in the larger view, affected the Human Race on a much larger scale. At the Time it was happening the population was in a constant state of shock, horror, and despair. In Time, as the disease faded, so did the emotional response, until today it is a footnote at best on the scroll of Human History.
In Time the sadness and cruelty of 2001 will take its place down at the bottom of the page next to the Plague.
I don’t mean to diminish or dismiss the loss and feelings of anyone. I have no control over events as perceived by anyone else and I cannot undo what happened and the pain that was caused. I can only affect things around myself and only for myself. I know that within my life that I don’t have room for anymore pain. Honestly, I don’t know anyone who does.
The eighteen years since that awful morning in New York City, Washington D.C., and rural Pennsylvania, we have all been caught up in a soul wrenching 24 hours a day Anger. I’m not immune to that, but it is more than I can and care to wallow in the mud with. I feel that all of that around the clock emotion only causes more heartache and sadness without solving anything. There isn’t Time – either in my life or in our collective life for it all. It’s not healthy no matter how you look at it.
I speak only for myself today and every day. I do what I need to survive and thrive. It is all that I, as an individual, can do. If someone else reads this and does the same for themselves – good luck. We all live in a Time and everything we do, think, and remember becomes History. If you don’t like the History surrounding us all – go out and make your own.
Down the Hall on Your Left 
Well said, old friend.
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Thank you
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Reblogged this on Reflections and commented:
Added perspective on a solemn day from my friend John Kraft.
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Yes, well said!
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Couldn´t have said it better. Thanks.
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Thank you.
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America has enemies. Communism was a real threat (despite many people’s dismissive comments about the “Red Scare”). But while we were focused on that, we were forgetting about a more ancient enemy, still nursing grudges from the Crusades and still continuing a project to subjugate the whole world that began in the seventh century. Should we live our lives in anger and fear? Of course not, but we do need to keep our eyes open. God has put eternity into our hearts, but while we are on earth we live in this particular time.
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