Commentary
This morning MSNBC is showing a rebroadcast of the Today show's coverage of the September 11, 2001 terror attacks in real time. The "living history" event began at 8:53am this morning. I only made it through to 9:22am when I had to change the channel and put on local memorial coverage on WCBS TV.
I was prepared to see the plane crash into the South Tower at 9:03am, and even to see a repeat of the event several times. What I wasn't ready for emotionally, even nine years later, was the sight of the little black specks falling from the windows of the inferno that was the Twin Towers; they were people jumping to their deaths to escape the flames, going out the windows while Katie Couric and Matt Lauer tried to piece together what was happening, unaware at that stage of coverage of what was happening on screen.
There are certain days in one's life that we can remember in vivid detail; usually because something wonderful happened, or an event so horrific it sticks with you forever. Early in the afternoon of September 11, 2001 I needed to get out and just walk around- it was unusually warm in the Northeast that day, in the low 80's and humid. In the air you could smell the faint odor of smoke, like a fire had occurred recently; the bodies of some the victims in the WTC were now reduced to carbon atoms floating into the sky. I remember pausing and watching a white butterfly land on a blooming hosta, posing and spreading his wings.
And I thought; in a world that is still so abundant with so much beauty and tranquility, why does man try to wantonly destroy that which is good, all too often in the name of God?
Because in doing so they are committing the most unforgivable sin of all, and perhaps the ultimate sacrilege.
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