Sunday 11 September 2011

Solidarity with Americans

I'm not over it, and if I hear a single word about "backlash" today, I will scream. Today is about those who died on 9/11, their families and their neighbours. It is not a day for journalists et alia to pat themselves on their backs for their super-wonderful open-hearted compassion for Muslims-in-general. If they want to do that for the other 364 days of the year, fine. But not today. Today is for Americans-in-general.

9 comments:

Catholic Bibliophagist said...

Thank you.

--C.B.

Just another Catholic girl said...

Amen to that Seraphic.

Cordi said...

Thank you.

Domestic Diva said...

Thank you, Seraphic. God bless America...

Emily said...

Thank you for this, from the American midwest.

Pedantic Classicist said...

As a man who was born and raised in NYC (though strangely enough, I left to become a volunteer in the west just a month before the attacks, and have never again lived there), I thank you heartily, Seraphic.

I have been impressed with the solemnity of the various memorial services, snippets of which I have caught on the radio throughout the day. At Mass, Father made a point of the distinction between patriotism--which can be a virtue affiliated with piety--and nationalism, which is stricto sensu a vice. Nice to get these clear distinctions sometimes from super trad priests!

The older I get, the more I realize that we never really "get over" the traumas of our lives. It's like that one passage in Eliot's Dry Salvages in which he compares such traumas to ragged rocks that always remain in the river of our lives. As I walked to Mass, listening to Barber's Adagio for Strings (which I've always thought of as Movie music for the Crucifixion), I was suddenly moved to tears, thinking of the many lost that day, the death of my own mother last year, and the death of Him who died and who lives in solidarity with us all.

May He always be near to you and to your dear readers.

With respect, PC

"So then, whether we live or die, we are the Lord's." -Romans 14:8 (RSV)

Catherine said...

Thank you from this American.

Anonymous said...

Thank you for saying this, Seraphic!

Barb in NY

theobromophile said...

Thank you - from someone who lost extended family in the tragedy.