Subj: Beginning
Date: 9/11/01 10:40:34 PM Eastern Daylight Time
From: unicorn(a)sun-spot.com (J Philpot)
Reply-to: unicorn(a)sun-spot.com
To: Sundayrocking(a)topica.com
Sunday Afternoon Rocking
Generally you receive one message per week from Sunday Afternoon
Rocking. But like many of you, probably all of you, my heart is heavy
tonight, and there are words that want to be said.
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We search our family trees, and we find with pride those who have fought
and won a nation, whether they carved it from a wilderness, or they fought
in a war to make it free, or to keep it so. We join our organizations and
proudly declare that we are sons and daughters of the Revolutionary
soldiers who shed the blood that stained the stripes of our flag. We join
our organizations and proudly attest to those who fought in war after war
for this country. We document them in our genealogies, we collect the
papers that attest to proof. We "assume" those days are past, but we pay
homage to those who lived it.
We have enjoyed our liberties, we have taken our security for granted. We
go about our business each day and never worry about our home burnt in our
absence, never stop to think our schools might close tomorrow, never dream
that a barrier of strange soldiers might suddenly divide our community and
keep us from reaching our destination or returning home in the evening. We
never have to instruct our children how to return home most safely in the
afternoon should bullets be flying on our streets. We never see them off in
the morning and truly wonder if we will ever see them again. We never think
of our citizens being rounded up into the backs of trucks or in rail cars,
pushed and shoved until there is barely space to breathe or stand, and
being carted away to some prison camp for civilians. We never dream of our
schools being turned into hospitals for victims of war, never dream of some
part of our community suddenly running red with the blood of a battle. And
it is so because countless young men generation after generation haven
given their own blood that ours might not be shed. It is because young men
no older than many of our own sons gave up their own chances to enjoy life,
a marriage, children, fulfillment...to answer the call of a country.
Amazing to realize we owe what we have to countless young men, most of whom
were mere teens or in their early twenties.
Today we saw an attack on our own soil such as is unprecidented in the
history of this great nation, one of the "safest" on earth. Our young men
in the military could not help us today, because the attack was the attack
of cowards. " They", who ever that might be, did not attack our military,
they gave no warning. They declared war on babies and children, on men and
women visiting kindred and conducting everyday business. They did not give
us a name to retaliate against, or to protect ourselves from. They did
their evil deed to the most helpless of our country, and scuttled back
again into the darkness they emerged from.
Today it is time to realize that what we have taken for granted we can no
longer take for granted. What we have neglected to remember we can no
longer neglect to remember. What we have assumed will be our personal
future can no longer be assumed. If there is a time for all of our country
to forget its differences, and remember why we are all huddled together on
this great continent, it is now. If ever there was a time to remember that
what brought us to this country was the promise of what we have lived, of
what we have enjoyed the security of, all of us, it is now. There is no
longer a time for religious differences, or cultural differences, for
racial differences or socioeconomic differences. Right now no matter our
color, no matter our creed, no matter our differences, we are "in the same
boat". We are Americans. Our freedom has been spat upon, our citizens
terrified. Our "safe place" has been terrorized. And when there is no where
else to turn, when we cannot fight the enemy because the enemy has chosen
cowardice in the form of its attack, when humanity has no answers, there is
but one place to turn. All of us, in national prayer can awaken a nation,
can lean on the God who is bigger than any unidentified terrorist. And we
can grasp hands together, as Americans, stand proudly with the God we have
called upon, and let that God turn this tragedy into a blessing. A friend
sent me a link when I was feeling the most bleak, and here is how we can
all begin, in prayer. Here it is:
http://www.mamarocks.com/national_prayer.htm
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(Note: Afternoon Rocking messages are meant to be passed on, meant to be
shared...simply share as written without alterations...and in entirety.
Thanks, jan)
Sunday Afternoon Rocking columns are distributed weekly on the list Sunday
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