Editorial from Romanian Newspaper:

When you think the US isn't thought well of all over the world, read this editorial from a Romanian Newspaper.

~An Ode to America~

Why are Americans so united? They don't resemble one another even if you paint them! They speak all the languages of the world and form an astonishing mixture of civilizations. Some of them are nearly extinct, others are incompatible with one another, and in matters of religious beliefs, not even God can count how many they are. Still, the American tragedy turned three hundred million people into a hand put on the heart. 

Nobody rushed to accuse the White House, the army, the secret services that they are only a bunch of losers. 

Nobody rushed to empty their bank accounts. Nobody rushed on the streets nearby to gape about.

The Americans volunteered to donate blood and to give a helping hand. After the first moments of panic, they raised the flag on the smoking ruins, putting on T-shirts, caps and ties in the colors of the national flag. They placed flags on buildings and cars as if in every place and on every car a minister or the president was passing. On every occasion they started singing their traditional song: "God Bless America!". 

Silent as a rock, I watched the charity concert broadcast on Saturday once, twice, three times, on different TV channels. There were Clint Eastwood, Willie Nelson, Robert de Niro, Julia Roberts, Cassius Clay, Jack Nicholson, Bruce Springsteen, Sylvester Stalone, James Wood, and many others whom no film or producers could ever bring together. The American's solidarity spirit turned them into a choir. Actually, choir is not the word. What you could hear was the heavy artillery of the American soul.

What neither George W. Bush, nor Bill Clinton, nor Colin Powell could say without facing the risk of stumbling over words and sounds, was being heard in a great and unmistakable way in this charity concert. I don't know how it happened that all this obsessive singing of America didn't sound croaky, nationalist, or ostentatious! It made you green with envy because you weren't able to sing for your country without running the risk of being considered chauvinist, ridiculous, or suspected of who-knows-what mean interests.

I watched the live broadcast and the rerun of its rerun for hours listening to the story of the guy who went down one hundred floors with a woman in a wheelchair without knowing who she was, or of the Californian hockey player, who fought with the terrorists and prevented the plane from hitting a target that would have killed other hundreds or thousands of people.

How on earth were they able to bow before a fellow human? Imperceptibly, with every word and musical note, the memory of some turned into a modern myth of tragic heroes. And with every phone call, millions and millions of dollars were put in a collection aimed at rewarding not a man or a family, but a spirit which nothing can buy.

What on earth can unite the Americans in such a way? Their land? Their galloping history? Their economic power? Money? I tried for hours to find an answer, humming songs and murmuring phrases gt; which risk of sounding like common places. I thought things over, but I reached only one conclusion.

Only freedom can work such miracles!
 
 

Like everyone, I've been aghast at what has happened this week.  It brings back a lot of feelings of loss and my heart just goes out to all those lost or injured and their families.  Just wanted to share something I wrote Wednesday evening as I tried to sort out some of my feelings. 
 

Leonard Pitts 
Miami Herald 

It's my job to have something to say. 

They pay me to provide words that help make sense of that which troubles the American soul. But in this moment of airless shock when hot tears sting disbelieving eyes, the only thing I can find to say, the only words that seem to fit, must be addressed to the unknown author of this suffering.

You monster. You beast. You unspeakable bastard. 

What lesson did you hope to teach us by your coward's attack on our World Trade Center, our Pentagon, us? What was it you hoped we would learn? Whatever it was, please know that you failed. 

Did you want us to respect your cause? You just damned your cause. 

Did you want to make us fear? You just steeled our resolve. 

Did you want to tear us apart? You just brought us together. 

Let me tell you about my people. We are a vast and quarrelsome family, a family rent by racial, social, political and class division, but a family nonetheless. We're frivolous, yes, capable of expending tremendous emotional energy on pop cultural minutiae -- a singer's revealing dress, a ball team's misfortune, a cartoon mouse. We're wealthy, too, spoiled by the ready availability of trinkets and material goods, and maybe because of that, we walk through life with a certain sense of blithe entitlement. We are fundamentally decent, though -- peace-loving and compassionate. We struggle to know the right thing and to do it. And we are, the overwhelming majority 
of us, people of faith, believers in a just and loving God. 

Some people -- you, perhaps -- think that any or all of this makes us weak. You're mistaken. We are not weak. Indeed, we are strong in ways that cannot be measured by arsenals. 

Yes, we're in pain now. We are in mourning and we are in shock. We're still 
grappling with the unreality of the awful thing you did, still working to 
make ourselves understand that this isn't a special effect from some 
Hollywood blockbuster, isn't the plot development from a Tom Clancy novel.
Both in terms of the awful scope of their ambition and the probable final
death toll, your attacks are likely to go down as the worst acts of 
terrorism in the history of the United States and, probably, the history of 
the world. You've bloodied us as we have never been bloodied before. 

But there's a gulf of difference between making us bloody and making us 
fall. This is the lesson Japan was taught to its bitter sorrow the last time 
anyone hit us this hard, the last time anyone brought us such abrupt and
monumental pain. When roused, we are righteous in our outrage, terrible in 
our force. When provoked by this level of barbarism, we will bear any 
suffering, pay any cost, go to any length, in the pursuit of justice. 

I tell you this without fear of contradiction. I know my people, as you, I 
think, do not. What I know reassures me. It also causes me to tremble with
dread of the future. 

In the days to come, there will be recrimination and accusation, fingers
pointing to determine whose failure allowed this to happen and what can be 
done to prevent it from happening again. There will be heightened security,
misguided talk of revoking basic freedoms. We'll go forward from this moment
sobered, chastened, sad. But determined, too. Unimaginably determined.

You see, the steel in us is not always readily apparent. That aspect of our 
character is seldom understood by people who don't know us well. On this
day, the family's bickering is put on hold. 

As Americans we will weep, as Americans we will mourn, and as Americans, we 
will rise in defense of all that we cherish. 

So I ask again: What was it you hoped to teach us? It occurs to me that
maybe you just wanted us to know the depths of your hatred. If that's the
case, consider the message received. And take this message in exchange: You 
don't know my people. You don't know what we're capable of. You don't know
what you just started. 

But you're about to learn.

 
 

God Bless America

I watched as we all did 
As I saw a nation cry 
I said a prayer for the families 
I couldn't believe my eyes 

I feel it takes a coward 
To do what has been done 
America has been wounded 
But UNITED we stand as one 

My heart goes out to each family 
Whose life was hurt today 
I wish I had the answers 
To why a coward instructed this way 

I have to keep my faith 
I have to say a prayer 
For all of us in America 
And in the world everywhere 

God Bless our military men 
Who are being sent out today 
May prayers keep them safe 
On this fall September day 

To New York City I send 
Prayers from my state, your way 
The country feels your pain 
Emotions are running high today 

May God Bless us all 
No matter where we live 
America has been wounded 
My prayers to you I give 

Sharon Bryant, Alabama USA 
GOD BLESS AMERICA 

(Dublin, Ireland)

The Day After

They tried to knock us to our knees.
They dealt a crushing blow.
We stood and watched in terror as
The peace we’ve come to know

Was sliced by planes made missiles,
And torn from hearts that wept.
‘Twas trampled ‘neath the bloody dust,
In ways we can’t accept.

As colleagues ran in terror
From all engulfing fires,
We witnessed heros in the smoke
Who’s bravery yet inspires.

We saw a mighty cityscape
Collapse before our eyes.
We listened as it crushed our hopes,
And stilled those muted cries.

But rising from those ashes,
A country proud and tough
Who standing tall and strong once more
Will call that coward’s bluff.

They can not daunt our spirit.
This country will prevail.
Together we can ride this storm,
And stand against the gale.

Through ashes, carnage, rubble 
Our spirit will endure.
Security alone was breached.
Our honor stands secure.

B.V. Dahlen
~September 12, 2001

Bea Dahlen
Newport News, Virginia. 
Bea
Alias Beabea
Life itself can't give you joy, unless you really will it;
Life just gives you time and space, it's up to you to fill it.

--Unknown 

9-11
(Nine One One)
by Linda Ellis copyright 2001

We are over the shock and disbelief,
and now the grieving has begun
for American hearts were scarred forever
on September 11, 2001.

Though these prideful hearts were wounded
and the scars may never heal,
this evil that has penetrated our borders
will only heighten the pride that we feel.

This sinister evil knows no boundaries.
It has no values, no conscience, no heart.
What other entity possesses the power
to willfully tear thousands of families apart?

No wall is impenetrable by its actions,
however massive in stature and length.
Sometimes even the mighty are tested
and forced to display their strength.

And let this be comfort to our veterans,
who are now shedding tears of dismay…
These cowards we should not call "men"
will have their very own judgement day.

The seeds of hatred they think they’ve planted
deeply in American soil
will be cultivated only by American pride
to make us MORE united, allegiant and loyal!

For they say there is strength in numbers
and those who took for granted each freedom and right
have been awakened with a new sense of resolve
to hold their freedom with fists clenched tight.

And if they believe American patriotism
is something they can annihilate or sever,
let them realize that their senseless acts
hoisted our flag to fly higher than ever!

To every husband who lost his wife
and every mother who lost her son…
a million prayers have been with you
every day since nine one one.

Linda Ellis, Marietta, GA
author of the poem "The Dash"
http://www.lindaslyrics.com/

September 14 - National Day of Remembrance and Prayer

Two young men light candles in Brooklyn, New York on Friday to remember those lost in the World Trade Center attack.

Clergy and lay people participate in a prayer service for the victims in front of the damaged side of the Pentagon in Washington

Doves are released as Dekalb County firefighters, police officers and sheriff's deputies salute on the steps of the old Dekalb County Courthouse. 

Kelia Ramirez - San Juan, Texas

Charlotte, NC

Oracle Employees - Redwood City, CA

People gather in Chicago's Daley Plaza for a moment of silence on Friday.

Eddie Anderson, with the City of Rock Hill Public Works Department, bows his head during a community prayer service in Rock Hill, S.C., on Friday. 

Citizens of Bristol, Fla., recite the Pledge of Allegiance as they gathered on the grounds of the Liberty County court house to take part in the National Day of Prayer and Remembrance on Friday.
 

People holding candles are reflected in the pool at the Christian Science Church in Boston on Friday. 
 

The Stars and Stripes fly as Renate Grell weeps  in front of the U.S. Embassy in Berlin on Friday,  with other Berliners who had gathered to commemorate the victims of the attacks.

 

A crowd observes three minutes of silence to honor victims of the attack while holding a vigil outside the U.S. Embassy in Paris.

 

Firefighters of Basel, Switzerland, hold three minutes of silence in honor of their American
firefighting counterparts who died after Tuesday's terrorist attack at the World Trade Center.

Motorists leave their cars in Kerkdriel, the Netherlands, to observe three minutes of silence in memory of the victims of the terrorist attacks in the United States.
 

Palestinian children light candles in the West Bank city of Hebron in memory 
of the victims of the terrorist attacks in the United States.

 



More than 100 firefighters held a solemn candlelight vigil in Taiwan.



A man prays during a Kenyan Council of Churches 
memorial service in Nairobi, Kenya, on Friday.