tp40.xml
Title
tp40.xml
Source
born-digital
Media Type
story
Date Entered
2003-02-24
TomPaine Story: Story
We have no choice, the object lesson of the maelstrom moment we title ""9/11"" is so compelling, we must learn from it or be sucked into a black whole of nihilism and despair. But in the obscuring gray of falling ash and the resounding silence of the impossible made possible what do we see? What can we learn?
We see our children - down to the seventh generation - and we comprehend how well they are loved. What do we tell them? What do we offer to sustain hope, ensure a sense of futurity? We see our brothers and sisters, close at hand and far off, who, in the serendipity of existence, share this time, this space with us on planet Earth - and we feel their horror and confusion as death rains down from above, for now, these are also our horror and confusion; we see the irreplaceable beauty and significance of each of our lives, the great loveliness and desirability of human global,community.
We see writ in three dimensions and technicolor reality, the perversity, the brutality , the obscenity, the exportability, the evil of violence: violence as entertainment, violence as rhetoric, violence as solution - either personal or political. We see the endpoint of hatred.
We see the cost wrought by the blindness of ignorance: be it of apathy or ideology, ours, theirs. We see the imperatives of history: lessons unlearned , return; as you sow, so shall you reap; great hubris leads to inevitable fall.
We see that bounteous resources and national gifts, unlimited access to power, do not in themselves ensure for nations, virtue or its rewards.
We learn . . .we must learn . . . to seek the truth, personally and together ,with passion and persistence, and to insist that truth ,and attendant justice, be the foundation for action. We must learn to cherish and cultivate what is good and beautiful and creative in the world, to search for planetary sustainability. We must learn to insist with our leaders that this is our will and their mandate.
We see our children - down to the seventh generation - and we comprehend how well they are loved. What do we tell them? What do we offer to sustain hope, ensure a sense of futurity? We see our brothers and sisters, close at hand and far off, who, in the serendipity of existence, share this time, this space with us on planet Earth - and we feel their horror and confusion as death rains down from above, for now, these are also our horror and confusion; we see the irreplaceable beauty and significance of each of our lives, the great loveliness and desirability of human global,community.
We see writ in three dimensions and technicolor reality, the perversity, the brutality , the obscenity, the exportability, the evil of violence: violence as entertainment, violence as rhetoric, violence as solution - either personal or political. We see the endpoint of hatred.
We see the cost wrought by the blindness of ignorance: be it of apathy or ideology, ours, theirs. We see the imperatives of history: lessons unlearned , return; as you sow, so shall you reap; great hubris leads to inevitable fall.
We see that bounteous resources and national gifts, unlimited access to power, do not in themselves ensure for nations, virtue or its rewards.
We learn . . .we must learn . . . to seek the truth, personally and together ,with passion and persistence, and to insist that truth ,and attendant justice, be the foundation for action. We must learn to cherish and cultivate what is good and beautiful and creative in the world, to search for planetary sustainability. We must learn to insist with our leaders that this is our will and their mandate.
Collection
Citation
“tp40.xml,” September 11 Digital Archive, accessed December 24, 2024, https://911digitalarchive.org/items/show/768.