Oh, look! A soapbox.

Happy Birthday to gehayi!

Today is also a co-worker of mine's birthday, but he said he and his family are going to celebrate it tomorrow, since today is, well, September 11th. I personally think today would be a good day to celebrate life, and our appreciation of it.

At the one year anniversary, the company where I worked had a little ceremony of sorts, where we gathered in the conference room, and had a moment of silence. Then this one woman spoke. She was a lovely woman, very sweet, but she had some opinions that some people might think a bit too evangelical. She gave a speech that basically said that 9/11 was a judgment on Americans for being such sinners, that because so many people turned their back on God, or something, the devil was able to sneak in under His radar, or something. Not sure. I do know it bothered me more than a little bit, so I responded.

What I said, and what I believe is this. What happened wasn't the evil of some supernatural being, but was born of humans being evil to other humans.

In tragedies like this, though, is when we get the chance to really find God within ourselves. For all the evil that happened that day there were hundreds and hundreds of stories, from the heroic to the mundane, of people doing good for other people.

I saw one story were this man escaped, and as he made his way home, in considerable shock, kept asking everyone he saw to call his wife. When he got home, she'd gotten over a dozen phone calls from complete strangers telling her her husband was alive. That's God.

A few weeks after it happened, I was talking to a woman and she told me that she'd been with her best friend, who's husband had been injured that day. He was 3 blocks away in a truck, and when the towers fell, somehow the blast knocked his truck into a building. He was unconscious for three days, and had many broken bones. When he woke up, the first thing he said was 'Did I hit anybody?' That's God, too, I think.

This is why I'm enraged that George Bush used this date as an excuse to go to war. Killing, no matter how justified is doing a disservice to every single person who found their own angel within them that day. It is unfair to all the people who died because humans were being evil to other humans. Continuing that evil, again, no matter how justified, is not being honorable to their memories.

Anyway. Let's celebrate life as we remember those whose lives ended this date three years ago. Let's all try to find God in us, and do good.

Oh, look! A soapbox.

Happy Birthday to gehayi!

Today is also a co-worker of mine's birthday, but he said he and his family are going to celebrate it tomorrow, since today is, well, September 11th. I personally think today would be a good day to celebrate life, and our appreciation of it.

At the one year anniversary, the company where I worked had a little ceremony of sorts, where we gathered in the conference room, and had a moment of silence. Then this one woman spoke. She was a lovely woman, very sweet, but she had some opinions that some people might think a bit too evangelical. She gave a speech that basically said that 9/11 was a judgment on Americans for being such sinners, that because so many people turned their back on God, or something, the devil was able to sneak in under His radar, or something. Not sure. I do know it bothered me more than a little bit, so I responded.

What I said, and what I believe is this. What happened wasn't the evil of some supernatural being, but was born of humans being evil to other humans.

In tragedies like this, though, is when we get the chance to really find God within ourselves. For all the evil that happened that day there were hundreds and hundreds of stories, from the heroic to the mundane, of people doing good for other people.

I saw one story were this man escaped, and as he made his way home, in considerable shock, kept asking everyone he saw to call his wife. When he got home, she'd gotten over a dozen phone calls from complete strangers telling her her husband was alive. That's God.

A few weeks after it happened, I was talking to a woman and she told me that she'd been with her best friend, who's husband had been injured that day. He was 3 blocks away in a truck, and when the towers fell, somehow the blast knocked his truck into a building. He was unconscious for three days, and had many broken bones. When he woke up, the first thing he said was 'Did I hit anybody?' That's God, too, I think.

This is why I'm enraged that George Bush used this date as an excuse to go to war. Killing, no matter how justified is doing a disservice to every single person who found their own angel within them that day. It is unfair to all the people who died because humans were being evil to other humans. Continuing that evil, again, no matter how justified, is not being honorable to their memories.

Anyway. Let's celebrate life as we remember those whose lives ended this date three years ago. Let's all try to find God in us, and do good.