Monday, September 11, 2006

And the sky was blue ...


One of the vivid things I remember about September 11th 2001 was the vivid blue sky that served as a background for the horrific events unfolding half a world away ...

Had it been cloudy or foggy ... had the towers been obscured by rain, or a low ceiling ... the visual image of the explosions, the fires, and the collapse followed by the clouds of dust and smoke would not have had the same impact ...

It was the deep blue sky of a perfect fall day in New York City that provided the dramatic backdrop for the events that unfolded that day ... It was, as disturbing as it may be to say - picture perfect ... Hollywood techno-geeks doing special effects could not have provided a more perfect tableau ...

And so as we watched horrified ... mesmerized ... shocked beyond words the perfect blue sky provided a backdrop for events that shook us ...

The next day, driving across the flat bald prairie I noticed something I had never noticed in my life before ... The sky was perfect ... there were only clouds and blue and sun ... there were no jet contrails ... there was only the sky as the First People had seen it a Century ago before our silver birds arrived and began to change the world ...

I stopped and stared ... it was a perfect blue sky ...

From the hurt and horrors we emerged, blinking in the sunlight, praying for the families, praying for the neighbours, praying for the people of New York who one beautiful fall day watched horror on an unimaginable scale unfold before their eyes ...

The word WHY? rose to our lips ... we looked up searching for answers ... searching perhaps for God ... we looked up and on September 11th and 12th and 13th, the sky was still blue ... the sun was still shining inspite of our pain, our fears, our sorrows ...

We looked up and say above us a perfect, beautiful, blue sky ...

The world changed ... but life rolls on ...
and we remember ... still standing under a perfect blue sky ...

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