Earlier today I commented on super blogger Rachel Held Evans’ post. She addressed the latest upset about Rush Limbaugh and how Christians are responding. Her post got a whopping 325 comments before they were closed because of trolls.
Rather than have you rummage through all that, here’s an excerpt of my lengthy comment:
As for Rush, his delivery is faulted, even distasteful. Like it or not, he’s protected just like you and I are under the First Amendment to speak and have a place at the table of public discourse. I would argue that some of his political points are spot-on in line with an evangelical perspective, especially regarding right to life issues. And he has a platform and an audience.
Tonight I revisited to see if Evans responded. She didn’t and I didn’t expect her to. But a couple other bloggers did.
Here’s the reply that zapped me back to the U.S.S.R.:
“Like it or not, he’s protected just like you and I are under the First Amendment to speak and have a place at the table of public discourse.”
Actually, he’s not.
The First Amendment states, “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.”
No one is petitioning Congress to make a law about Rush Limbaugh. No one is trying to get the government to intervene. People have asked political figures their opinion, but they have not asked them to legislate on the issue.
No one is guaranteed a podium from which to spew hate speech. They are simply guaranteed freedom from government intervention.
first amendment got your back
Actually he’s not? Again I wonder, what country is this anyway?
The spirit of the First Amendment means everyone may speak even if we disagree. It’s the backbone or at least the ribcage of our other freedoms.
Am I to understand it’s en vogue to toss that spirit on a technicality? It’s now okay to censor as long as it’s not the government that does the dirty work?
Lawyers, scholars, law-abiding Americans, I need you here. Someone, anyone, weigh in, please. I’m listening.
What do ya’ll think?
You must all be quick to listen, slow to speak, and slow to get angry. James 1:19 NLT
How do I know Twitter scooped the story? Read it in a link from someone I follow on Twitter.
The fateful Saturday of Houston’s death, I’d been unplugged all day. Decided to log on before turning in for the night.
Checking Facebook when it popped up. A link to an AP article with the status: “Whitney Houston, dead at 48. So sad.”
Before social media, this news would have been brought to me by a more traditional means. Television. Radio. Newspaper. Grapevine.
Take the Saturday night of Princess Diana’s fatal car accident in 1997. My husband and I were watching Early Edition. Network news broke in announcing the Princess had been in a car crash. We stayed up for a while, hanging on the plodding, painful drip from BBC, then went to bed.
It wasn’t until Erwin Lutzer announced Diana’s death from the pulpit the next morning in church that we knew she hadn’t survived.
Presently, we are without a television. I mean we have one. We just haven’t hooked it up to cable or satellite since we moved.
It’s not that we don’t like television. We just don’t miss it all that much. We certainly don’t miss the mammoth bill.
We instantly access news online. Connected friends send us play-by-play on Facebook and Twitter. When we need to know, we do.
That said, we’d like to watch real time college basketball in our own living room rather than a sports bar. This year’s Olympic games, presidential election, and severe weather alerts in our new Tornado Alley home will likely force our hand.
We’ll have to accept the dreaded bundle from cable.
a whole new way, as seen at Best Buy
My dream is to pick and pay for only what I want without the excess channels and shenanigans in a prepackaged lineup. Digital cable holds the technology to make my dream a reality if only providers were willing to work out the kinks and offer cable a la carte.
I’m not the only one dreaming this dream. Devin Coldewy of Tech Crunch writes, “These days people can barely bring themselves to pay for anything online, and that philosophy is leaking into the cable world.”
Coldewey forecasts a “death spiral” for cable companies if they refuse to meet consumer demand.
Joe Flint of the Los Angeles Times writes the holdup is with large cable operators like Time Warner and Comcast who also create programming. They want “their channels in the homes of all their subscribers, not just the ones who want them.”
Cable companies, if you’re listening, let go and let the market decide.
If you choose to drag your feet, suit yourselves. Some ambitious startup will eventually earn my business by offering me what I want to buy.
You see, with or without television, life goes on. We may surrender to the bundle for now. Or we may continue to find ways around you.
We can borrow movies from the library. Watch the games at Applebee’s. Catch sitcoms on Hulu. Stream coverage on the iPad. And get our headlines in the quicksilver morse code of social media.
They do not fear bad news;
they confidently trust the LORD to care for them. Psalm 112:7 NLT
Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum, Springfield, Illinois
America, we seem dreadfully divided as we stand a mere eight months from our next presidential election.
Diametrically opposed points-of-view. Mudslinging. General upset, occupation, and malaise.
It’s disconcerting, but aren’t we tougher than all that? Aren’t we kinder, gentler, smarter, and more mature?
Flawed? Yes. Fiery? Call it passion. Scandalous? Afraid so. Folks, we’ve been here before.
History reminds us our most esteemed leaders and citizens struggled through years of division and turbulence more tumultuous than this round.
Washington Monument, Washington, D.C.
If only the greats could advise us now. Maybe they could add some perspective to our conservative versus liberal, red state against blue state conundrum.
“They are feisty,” George Washington might say, “but they are free.”
“Free and outspoken,” Abraham Lincoln might say with a chuckle.
“The revolution for independence was not in vain,” Washington might say. “They have not succumbed to a king.”
“Neither was the war between the states in vain, ” Lincoln might say. “They hold together. The Union remains.”
Gettysburg Museum and Visitor Center, Gettysburg, Pennsylvania
Liberty and union. What a concept.
Thank you, gentlemen, for your enduring service to our great nation and for setting the bar oh so high.
Happy Presidents’ Day, George and Abe.
He controls the course of world events; He removes kings and sets up other kings.
He gives wisdom to the wise and knowledge to the scholars. Daniel 2:21 NLT
Grab the tissues and watch this. Filmed only ten short years ago, Congress spontaneously sings God Bless Americaon Capitol Hill.
The photos in this post were taken during our family’s road trip last summer. It was our pleasure and privilege to visit these historic destinations, and we highly recommend them to you. Click on the photos to be linked to more information about each location.
Before January 2012 makes its final exit, there’s an anniversary to remember.
This month marks the 39th year since the 1973 decision in Roe v. Wade legalized abortion in the United States.
The hair on the back of your neck is rising as you read this, isn’t it?
Some of you are tuning out. Others are mentally rushing to your battle stations. Ready to defend your position in this divisive fight.
Regardless of which side you’re on, abortion inhabits a tragic, tender place.
The numbers are staggering. No one seems to know the exact figure. Most estimates agree abortion has ended more than 54 million pregnancies in America since Roe v. Wade.
That’s a lot of abortions and a lot of women. The Guttmacher Institute reports about half of American women will have an unintended pregnancy, and nearly one-third will have an abortion, by age 45.
The stakes are high. Abort73.com estimates providers take in more than one billion dollars annually for abortion services. On top of that, pro-life and pro-choice groups raise millions of dollars each year to support their causes.
Commonplace. Clinical. But still not openly discussed.
When was the last time you heard Jane or Mary or Lana flippantly drop, “Yes, I had an abortion last week,” in passing at the grocery store? More likely that conversation is shrouded in secrecy and whisper if it happens at all.
We whisper because this is a delicate subject. Maybe, despite our rights and choices, we recognize abortion ends human life.
Feminist writer Naomi Wolf acknowledged this way back on October 16, 1995, in The New Republic. Click here to read a full repost. Wolf writes:
Abortion should be legal; it is sometimes even necessary. Sometimes the mother must be able to decide that the fetus, in its full humanity, must die.
Ayelet Waldman did. In her 2009 best-selling book “Bad Mother,” Waldman writes a chapter entitled “Rocketship,” the nickname she gave her unborn child.
Waldman painfully recounts how she knew she was killing her baby. But she thought it was worth it. Better to choose to end his life than risk giving birth to a child who tested positive for possible birth defects. Waldman writes:
Although I know that others feel differently, when I chose to have the abortion, I feel I chose to end my baby’s life. A baby, not a fetus. A life, not a vague potentiality. As guilty and miserable as I felt, the only way I could survive was to confront my responsibility. Rocketship was my baby. And I killed him. (p.131)
Now we can carry out this choice in near-complete privacy. No accomplices but an inanimate pill. Clean and quiet, or so we think.
Enter Jennie Linn McCormack of Idaho. Sometime in December 2010 or January 2011—news reports vary—this unemployed, unmarried mother of three ended her pregnancy with RU-486, the abortion pill, her sister obtained online. Only McCormack didn’t realize how far along she was.
Frightened and confused, she put the corpse of her baby in a box and set it outside on her porch. The cold, winter air preserved the remains until they were discovered by authorities following a tip. A whisper.
An autopsy concluded the baby was between five and six months gestation.
Can you imagine the horror of facing the remains of your own child? Placing them in a box? Leaving them alone outside in the cold?
McCormack was arrested under a 1972 state law making it illegal for a woman to induce her own abortion. The case was dropped due to lack of evidence.
Meanwhile, McCormack’s been ostracized in her town. Can’t go out. Can’t work. Her private actions making her a pawn in the public battle to decide whose rights, whose life will be protected.
I’m not interested in condemning women who’ve had abortions. I’m not qualified to do so. We all sin, myself included. In Christ, there is the gift of forgiveness for you as much as there is for me and my transgressions. Take hold of it.
extinguished
Encroaching on your rights or privacy isn’t my concern either. I believe it’s most often in brave, lonely, silent moments of desperation you make a choice. You try to set things right in a tragic, tender place.
Yet we can’t turn a blind eye to the mass killing of a muted people. Little ones who have no means to defend themselves. Who have been blotted out of existence. Snuffed out like tiny match lights.
We are American citizens, born and unborn. Hold fire for a moment on this bloodied battlefield and listen. They are your countrymen. Hear them whisper.
How will we answer?
For You created my inmost being; You knit me together in my mother’s womb. Psalm 139:13 NIV
Dear Father, hear and bless Thy beasts and singing birds; And guard with tenderness Small things that have no words. —Anonymous
The story originally ran with the charming headline “Vanquishing the Colonel—Farmers work with chefs to restore Southern cuisine’s dignity.” Now tell us how you really feel, NYT.
Smart, talented, green, these rebel chefs and farmers are reviving the culinary practices and ingredients of the Old South. Restoring Southern cooking to its rightful place, so to speak.
It’s an interesting read. The deliciously described history and recipes combined with the Times’ exemplary writing tempt this GRITS (Girl Raised in the South) to scoot on over to Travelocity. Secure me an airplane ticket to Charleston or Birmingham. Quick and cheap, please.
Quick because I need that food NOW. Cheap because I will pay dearly for my dinner. According to Moskin’s story, these young chefs “are paying (and charging) big-city prices for down-home ingredients” just to stay in business.
No doubt gourmet Southern cuisine like hoppin’ John prepared with fancy red peas and heirloom rice is heavenly. But is it accessible to most folks? And is the food most Southerners cook and eat really undignified?
wanna play?
“Today, purists believe, Southern cooking is too often represented by its worst elements: feedlot hams, cheap fried chicken and chains like Cracker Barrel,” commiserates the Times.
Its worst elements? Them’s fightin’ words where I come from.
Emile DeFelice of Caw Caw Creek Farm in St. Matthews, S.C., producer of rare breed “heirloom pastured pork,” says in the article:
“My mother didn’t cook like that, and my grandmother didn’t cook like that. And if you want to come down here and talk about shrimp and grits, well, we’re tired of that, too. Southern cooking is a lot more interesting than people think.”
Well, Emile, maybe your mom didn’t cook like that. But lots of Southern moms did and still do.
And then there’s Chapel Hill’s finest Crook’s Corner. Sad to admit I’ve never actually eaten there. Doesn’t matter. I know, as all good Tarheels do, Crook’s is famous for shrimp and grits. We don’t tire of it in North Carolina, Emile.
This food is special occasion fare. I don’t eat that way on a daily basis. It’s not affordable or practical. I love highfalutin dining, but I love Cracker Barrel, too.
front porch
Road trip across these great United States with the family in tow, then you tell me. What’s better than seeing the sign of the old man, the barrel and the chair?
With it comes the assurance of window shopping for toys, candy and sentimental knickknacks. Chicken, catfish and okra fried up right. Comfort food for many a weary traveler, a mere interstate exit away.
The rising stars of Southern cuisine deserve the spotlight. What they’re cooking and reviving is beautiful and exceptional.
But did the Times have to disparage the rest of the genre? Why imply down-home country cooking is undignified? Why insult Paula Deen in the first paragraph of the story?
Most Southern cooks I know cook with butter. And pork. And greens. Acquired from the grocery store. Or The Fresh Market. Or their own gardens.
I followed an old Southern Living recipe to make hoppin’ John for New Year’s. With canned black-eyed peas (gasp!). Frozen collards (shame). Jasmine rice (what?). And Canadian bacon (traitor). Purchased at my local Midwestern grocery store.
In case you’re wondering, it was good. Just ask my husband.
That’s the point of Southern cooking and all good cooking. It’s accessible. Warm and welcoming. Hospitable and delicious. It makes artful use of what we have. There’s dignity in that and room for everyone at the table.
Don’t think you are better than you really are. Be honest in your evaluation of yourselves, measuring yourselves by the faith God has given us. Romans 12:3 NLT
Now if you’re feeling down and out, come on, baby, Drive South.
Disclaimer: I happily endorse, without compensation of any kind, the fabulous restaurants, store, and barbecue festival mentioned in this post. Yum-O.
Had fun with Reader’s Choice 2011. Hope you did too. Thought it was all wrapped up until I received a comment from my friend Chef Nusy.
Nusy is a friend I would not know except for this blog. We’ve never met in person, but we converse in the comments and her story inspires me.
Nusy was born and raised in Hungary. She immigrated to the United States alone at the ripe old age of 20. Did it for love.
Nusy married and now lives with her husband in California. She coaches fencing, teaches bread making, studies, and writes a blog called And Cuisine For All.
What impresses me about Nusy is her heart of freedom.
Communism anticlimactically fell in her homeland, but not much has changed for her people. So Nusy embraces life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness we Yankee Doodle Dandies sometimes take for granted.
When Nusy’s request reached me, I was moved. Here’s what she wrote:
If there’s still a spot on Reader’s Choice… this is mine. While I enjoyed Milk Wars and I Like My Bike, this was the post that hit me the deepest this year; not just here—all around the blogosphere.
The impact of history on a generation of people… and the lack of impact on those born after the tragedy. As Tolkien would put it, “the sorrow of the Firstborn.” That we have seen and experienced something that no words can ever describe to those who weren’t there to see it; we stand monument to the greatest tragedy of modern times.
Christel Oliphant is what we call an LLF. Lifelong friend.
It’s hard to remember when I didn’t know her. Miles separate us now. Still Christel proves the saying true: Make new friends, but keep the old. One is silver and the other gold.
Christel’s favorite post was an emotional one to write. Had to relive the shock and sadness I first felt the day the story unfolded, then try to convey it with words.
Uncertainty is no place to call home. Relocation is no picnic either.
As many of you have guessed, we’re moving this show to Wichita.
The man and his wife. The boy and the dog. The MacBook Pro (God rest your soul, Steve Jobs) and the blog.
There’s relief in making a decision. There’s also apprehension, excitement, hope and loss.
Responses have rolled in from across the blogosphere.
Here’s the Diehl is wondering what’s the deal through tears. Mine and hers. With strains of Green Acres playing in the background.
The would-be stand up comedian asked if I know Kansas is not in North Carolina.
A lifelong friend assured me she always wants the best for me. How comforting, humbling and cool is that? Makes me want to break out in Count Your Blessings. Then cry some more.
Another lifelong friend wrote the most amazing sunset she’d ever seen was in Kansas. Suggested My Antonia by Willa Cather. Done.
arch base
Ms. Moderation dubbed me Carolina Cowgirl, a title I adore. If the blogging thing doesn’t work out, there’s always rodeo. Or clogging.
Pinke Post wasted no time doing what she does so well. Connecting me with her people on the ground in Wichita. The woman is a rock star.
And Cuisine For All sent sage advice. Don’t worry. Take time to absorb the changes. You’ll be fine, she wrote. She’s ventured far from her homeland. She should know.
Traveling With the Jones has logged enough miles to know too. Told me to embrace change. Enjoy the ride. And just think of all the new material for posts!
My faithful friend who shall remain anonymous assured me Cowtown is not in Kansas because it’s in Texas.
And a fellow Southerner in exile in the Midwest told me you can raise a southern gentleman in Kansas. “It’s about values,” she said. “The expectations we have for and of them, saying ma’am and sir and being able to shuck an oyster.”
There are many other words of treasured wisdom, prayer and encouragement. Read more on Tuesday’s post. Add your own if you like.
under the arch
One more here, in the gentle eloquence of Via Peregrini:
Our souls are quite particular in where they find their homes. Yet, sometimes, they find in the new, the unexpected, something for which they’ve longed and you’ll discover that you can’t imagine life without that place, for that time.
Our years in St. Louis have taught us the history of westward expansion. Thomas Jefferson’s Louisiana Purchase in 1803. Lewis and Clark pushing across North America in the spirit of discovery.
Those who followed their path west were filled with dreams. Pioneers, farmers, soldiers, cowboys, gold miners, gangsters, hippies, writers, artists, entertainers. None of them had the luxury—the blessing—of toting a virtual community along. None until this latest crop.
We’re headed west. I hope you’ll join us for the adventure.
Send me Your light and Your faithful care,
let them lead me;
let them bring me to Your holy mountain,
to the place where You dwell. Psalm 43:3 NIV
Vivien Leigh as Scarlett O’Hara, image from fanpop.com
“Where?” I said.
“Wichita,” said my husband. And so it began.
The small successful company where my husband works has been acquired by a big successful company headquartered in Wichita. And they’ve offered him a job he really wants to do. In Wichita.
All right. To my Midwestern friends, please excuse the sarcasm.
The Midwest is a mighty fine place and I understand why you like it, especially if you were raised here, went to school here, or got married here. That’s precisely why I like The South.
I’ve been very open about my desire to move back to The South and raise a Carolina boy who grows up to attend a fabulous University in an enchanted place called the Triangle. Wichita doesn’t fit into that plan.
Back in August when I posted Welcome to the Wild West, I boldly wrote: To the west, young woman, as far as this horse will take you.
That was figurative. I didn’t mean to actually go west.
Wichita doesn’t have a J Crew store. According to Wikipedia the city’s nickname is Cowtown, although my husband disagrees. He says Dodge City is Cowtown. Can you feel my pain?
However, we visited Wichita to discover the people are kind and welcoming. The schools and houses are great. And I’d have a chance to become a real cowgirl.
My husband is excited about the job. His mentors are positive. Lots of people move, they say. We shouldn’t worry about our son. He’ll adjust to it fine.
“Did you tell them it’s not your son you’re concerned about?” I said as my head fell to my keyboard. Crash!
We’ve relocated twice before. Vowed never again to follow companies around the country for jobs in states that don’t have ina at the end.
East coast, please. Thirteen original colonies, south by southeast. Lakefronts are beautiful, but they’re not beaches. I miss my family, my ocean, my people.
When my husband first mentioned Kansas, it took all my strength to pull my hair up into a ponytail and run to the mall. If I’ve said it once, I’ve said it a thousand times: Where else does a Gen X girl go when in flight?
surprise lilies
As I brushed and gathered the locks, silver strands shined through winking at me like tinsel. I’m an adult. Have to act like one. Be thankful he has a job.
So does blogger girl put on the brave Midwestern face? Spit and shine her attitude? Think of this as a new adventure?
Or does she kindly, with the sweetest tea accent she can muster, decline the invitation to dance, hike up her hoop skirt, and get back to where she once belonged, bless her heart?
Gotta love a good cliff-hanger.
Have I not commanded you? Be strong and courageous. Do not be terrified; do not be discouraged, for the LORD your God will be with you wherever you go. Joshua 1:9 NIV
Today is Friday in September. Football season. My maroon and gold pom poms are calling.
They beckon me from the trunk of a 1980 maroon Camaro with gold pinstriping. When my dad selected the car, I believe he thought it needed to match my uniform.
The days are warm and sunny. Might think it’s still summer.
Then you catch a chill, the crisp crackle of fall on its way. The changing of the guard approaches. My body remembers it’s time to report to the field.
Hear the drumbeat of the marching band. Spirited cadence, rebel yells. Evening now. Almost time for the game to begin.
The home team bursts out of the locker room and breaks through the paper banner stretched across the end zone. Wild bucks, padded up and set loose. Stampeding leather cleats on sparkling green grass.
The horn section screams and flashes silver. The bleachers applaud. The pom poms dazzle and shake.
At some point in the pre game festivities, we cheerleaders gathered on the field. Maybe the football team too. It’s been years, I’ve been a long time gone, and I can’t remember exactly who joined the circle. But I do remember what we did.
Together we said The Lord’s Prayer before kickoff. A tradition and a covering over our game. Over our youth.
still fits!
So very politically incorrect. Only we didn’t know that then.
Those were the days we could still call our team the Indians. Now it’s called the Storm.
How long, I wonder, until the National Weather Service complains? Good thing the replacement mascot wasn’t an animal or we’d have PETA picketing the commons.
And that’s just a wee little pocket in North Carolina.
Dare I question the state university due east of my current home in St. Louis? When will the Fighting Illini become the Fearsome Gully Washers or the Frightening Thunder-Boomers?
We weren’t perfect, but we were good kids. We proudly called ourselves the Indians, believing it meant brave, strong, fierce warriors. We wouldn’t have taken the name if we’d believed it to be oppressive or offensive.
Looking back, I hope no one felt oppressed or was offended. It pains me to think folks would actually take it that way.
cheer detail
In 2004, the Guilford County Board of Education prompted by the North Carolina State Board of Education and the North Carolina Mascot Education & Action Group (yes, there is such a thing) voted to “retire” the mascot that had represented my school since 1926.
So it changed. A lot has changed since I left my pom poms behind.
A couple years ago, the homegirls threw an awesome 20th reunion party for our class. In between all the hugging and laughing and reuniting, we gathered.
Before the dancing and the open bar, we prayed. A tradition. A covering.
maroon & gold
When I think of those friends, those times, my high school—to me, we’ll always be the Indians, brave and strong, on a crisp, early autumn Friday night.
How do you know what your life will be like tomorrow? Your life is like the morning fog—it’s here a little while, then it’s gone. James 4:14 NLT
I saw a quiet September morning. A clear blue sky. A day like any other.
I heard the sounds of my husband showering upstairs. The cereal plinking in my bowl.
The guy on the radio, “This just in from the AP newswire. It appears a plane has crashed into the World Trade Center in New York.”
“Jeff,” I called. “They’re saying on the radio a plane crashed into the World Trade Center.”
“Turn on the TV!”
We sat together on the couch, the two of us cloistered in our little Midwestern living room. We stared at the screen. Saw smoke pouring out of the North Tower.
Spent the rest of the day trying to find normal. All the while, horrifying news rolled in from the East Coast like some wayward hurricane making landfall.
“Do you think you should come home?” I said to my husband over the phone. “There may be more hijackers on a flight to St. Louis.”
“No,” he said. “We’re okay here. They’re not going to hit a low-rise office building in Clayton.”
“But there might be other cells with bombs,” I said. “Your office has an underground parking garage.”
He stayed put. I drove home. I heard Dan Rather on the car radio, his voice shrouded by the background noise of the South Tower falling. Crumbling, crashing, shattering, concrete, glass, dust and death.
Could almost smell the ash and dust as it swirled and covered him. Heard the eerie whistling of the firefighters’ equipment in the black of that day.
Hung our flag and placed a candle in our yard. Tasted the tears.
Later that evening I went to my graduate school class. I listened in disbelief as my professor refused to call the attacks evil.
Came home to watch the media whitewash the footage. Pulling photos. Editing out the most startling video. Concluding only a few days into the crisis the public had seen enough. Running film from the attacks would only incite violence.
I am a witness to the attacks of September 11, 2001, along with millions of my countrymen and millions more people around the world. I want to forget, but I can’t. I want to go on as if it never happened, but that would be a lie.
if you see something say something
So what does it mean being a witness?
Each of us must decide how to respond. And yet there is one responsibility we have in common, I think.
If you see something, say something. And keep saying it and saying it and saying it.
Earth, do not cover my blood;
may my cry never be laid to rest!
Even now my Witness is in heaven;
my Advocate is on high.
My Intercessor is my friend
as my eyes pour out tears to God;
on behalf of a man He pleads with God
as one pleads for a friend. Job 16:18-21 NIV
This is the final post in a series commemorating the 10th anniversary of the terrorist attacks of 9.11.2001. The first post Somewhere in Pennsylvania was published August 24, 2011, and the second post The Angry American was published September 1, 2011.
This past June, we took our son on his first trip to Washington, D.C.
Showed him the city in grand style. The museums, the monuments, the zoo. Even the U.S. Capitol thanks to my husband’s college friend Rep. Vicky Hartzler.
Previously I’d spent a good deal of time in D.C. I knew the ropes. But this trip would be my first visit to the Pentagon. Don’t know why I hadn’t gone before.
My husband had work commitments that day, so my little boy and I were on our own. We rode the yellow line out to the Pentagon stop. Emerged from the Metro tunnel into hot, blinding sunlight. Passed through security. Beheld the military headquarters of the free world.
The Pentagon is massive.
the Pentagon Memorial
We walked two long sides girded by concrete barriers. Crossed paths with dozens of strong men and women. Upright, built, neat as pins in their uniforms, marching to their cars or the train. It was late afternoon. Time for some to go home.
Then we came to the place we’d come to see.
It was seamless and silent. Completely ordered. Respectful. Logical. Such a stark contrast to what must have been the moment the plane torpedoed the southwest side of the building.
bench, pool, pebbles
And it was beautiful. The pools of water. The trees and pebbles. The paths and benches.
The benches stood in trajectories arched toward the building for the 59 passengers on the plane who died and arched away for the 125 people in the Pentagon who died. Engravings held the victims’ names.
Another mother walked among the benches and the names with her son.
“How do I explain this to him?” she said to me.
I shrugged. Nodded. Tried to connect with her eyes, “I know. I know.”
a family
My son and I walked on through the memorial. The strange peacefulness that sometimes inhabits a graveyard hung in the air. I wondered if he felt it too.
I let it be. Didn’t try to explain it.
There is no explaining it.
If there is pain, fear, sadness, anger—that’s part of grief. Part of a process that can’t be circumvented, reasoned or negotiated.
"How do I explain this to him?"
The only way through it is through it.
But you, God, see the trouble of the afflicted;
You consider their grief and take it in hand.
The victims commit themselves to You;
You are the helper of the fatherless. Psalm 10:14 NIV
This is the second of three posts commemorating the 10th anniversary of 9.11.2001. The first post Somewhere in Pennsylvania was published on August 24, 2011. The final post If You See Something was published on September 10, 2011.
