The People Of The Other Village

hate the people of this village
and would nail our hats
to our heads for refusing in their presence to remove them
or staple our hands to our foreheads
for refusing to salute them
if we did not hurt them first: mail them packages of rats,
mix their flour at night with broken glass.
We do this, they do that.
They peel the larynx from one of our brothers’ throats.
We devein one of their sisters.
The quicksand pits they built were good.
Our amputation teams were better.
We trained some birds to steal their wheat.
They sent to us exploding ambassadors of peace.
They do this, we do that.
We canceled our sheep imports.
They no longer bought our blankets.
We mocked their greatest poet
and when that had no effect
we parodied the way they dance
which did cause pain, so they, in turn, said our God
was leprous, hairless.
We do this, they do that.
Ten thousand (10,000) years, ten thousand
(10,000) brutal, beautiful years.

Thomas Lux

(10,000 years is the rough number of years humans have engaged in civilizations)

I thank and praise God for this web site and all the shipmates. Throughout the postings of pain, anger, lamentation, grief, shock, bewilderment, love and compassion, there has been a shining thread of trust in God that stirs an echo in me and gives me hope. Thank you and bless you all for that.

I am sure today that Christians everywhere will be called to account for their faith.

And has Brother Chris surfaced yet?

I just want to let you know that everybody at Fessenden House is safe and accounted for. Yesterday was horrible. Yonkers is about ten miles from lower Manhattan, but we could see the smoke and ash plume from our front porch and we heard the thunderous noise as each tower collapsed a few seconds after seeing it on TV. One of our residents, Charlie, was frantic because his girlfriend, Mitzi, was at school in lower Manhattan, just two blocks from the WTC, when this all started happening, and he couldn't get in touch with her, nor she with him. She made it home finally at about 8:00 last night, tired, filthy and scared. She had been in City Hall Park already walking home when the first tower fell and got caught in the leading edge of the debris, etc. As far as we can tell from the TV pictures her school, Pace University, was caught in the shower of flames and debris as the north tower collapsed.

We had a Eucharist here at the house last night. Bishop Roskam was our celebrant. This was intended to be a festive celebration in honor of the patrons of our chapel, Constance and her Companions, but it turned out to be something very different. Halfway through the Eucharist the bishop had to excuse herself as she ran to the bathroom vomiting. The stress and horror of the day just suddenly became too much for her.

I haven't been able to take in what everybody has been writing. I'm still pretty numb and feel like a zombie. I guess I'm still in shock.

I can guess what everyone world over is feeling as I sit here tonight. It's 10:00pm, and I am alone, my sister being out.

I feel scared, invaded, like you never know what might happen, like terrorists could storm my street, or anything down to an arson or burglary attack on my house...

Now this is the normal state of the world. It is significant that it takes a tragedy of such magnitude to bring us to our senses.

There must be a large number of people out there, not only bereaved, but soooo uncertain of what the future holds. I feel, as I'm sure we all do, for everyone in the US tonight/today... Certainly those who have cited sleeplessness are not the only ones who will suffer with it.

It is tempting to spend all your time listening to news broadcasts and talking to people about what happened. I can work myself up into quite a state that way. Obviously this is not constructive, and I think that in a crisis people should make a special effort to behave constructively.

quote:

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Originally posted by Erin:
Osama bin Laden is not the only person who has the resources available to do this. The Medellin cartel also has the resources to do something like this

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What resources do you need? Four guys to fly a plane? There are no resources necessary. This could have been anyone.

Everyone is saying there will be war. There won't. The US cannot wage war on a person, or a group. A war can only be waged on a state. There will most likely be strong retaliation against Afghanistan and Pakistan, but the real enemy is an ide, an Ideal. It's in the minds and the hearts and souls of the terrorists - enough that they killed themselves for it. No matter how hard the US strikes, and no matter who they strike, it will never be able to crush this idea, and they will never win.

[edited UBB code]

This however is not the same as justice.

The US is understandably very angry now. This is not the best frame of mind to be in when thinking about taking rational, considered, just and proportionate action.

I hope and pray we will not see escalations which could have hugely worse effects worldwide than yesterday's appalling atrocities in the Northern part of the American continent.

Terrorism of this kind is quite different from warfare. Warfare is carried out under the command of the leaders of a state, and thus retaliation against that state can - to some extent - be justified. Terrorism is carried out by individuals or groups with no clear authority structure and no clear geographic boundaries, so retaliation using weapons of mass destruction is even more inappropriate. Since no state is directly responsible for yesterday's events, there is no state for USA to declare war against.

May God have mercy on us all.

quote:

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Originally posted by CharlottePlatz:
...
Its only natural that we should want to retaliate, an eye for an eye and all that.
...

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You need the resources to train pilots to pull of such a stunt. Clearly you don't know your ass from a cockpit, otherwise you'd know that it is pretty damn difficult to steer a plane hundreds of miles into a relatively not large target. You have to have the funds in place to train them. You have to have the network in place to get them and their weapons on board in such a planned event.

It's not that I wouldn't dearly like to see someone punished, or that I don't think it's incredibly important to stop them from doing it again, but the world needs to stop and think before it decides what to do.

If Bin Laden is responsible, then Bush has made it pretty clear that there will be major trouble for Afghanistan if they don't hand him over. Much as I hate what the Taliban has done/is doing, I still realise that Afghanistan is a poor country, gripped with civil war. US military reprisals against them could have appalling long term consequences in terms of civillian lives. More killing of innocents is not a good solution to the problem. I don't know what the right solution is. I just know that we cannot stoop to their level.

I cannot love my enemies, in this situation. But I can know who my enemies are. Not the people of any developing world country - that's for sure.

I don't know what the answer is. It hurts even to think about it. I just don't know.

Though I would gladly publicly flog the people who celebrate something like this, I'm not after Palestinian or any other innocent blood. The guilty, though...

The people behind this, and the government that supports them, are our enemies. Not just enemies of America, but the UK and other NATO countries as well (remember NATO?). Additionally, they are enemies of all our Pacific and South America allies with whom we have a treaty. Militarily speaking, the United States cannot be on any higher level of alert. We are currently in an unofficial state of war.

quote:

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Originally posted by rachel_o:
But I can know who my enemies are. Not the people of any developing world country - that's for sure.

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If it isn't Bin Laden behind this, then it's most likely somone in another poverty-stricken nation. If it's someone in a rich nation, then it doesn't actually make a lot of difference. Military retaliation means innocent people will die.

After the Pan Am plane exploded over Lockerbie, killing everyone on board, and many, many on the ground it took YEARS of negotiations, sanctions, etc etc to extradite those presumed responsible. But those poeple were brought, in the end to a court of law.

The non-military methods may not be quick, they may not satisfy our thirst for revenge, but we should pray that they will be used and be effective. The alternatives are - I'm convinced - worse.

All the best,

I can see where you're coming from. But the consequences of war are enormous, far bigger than the consequences of this truly dreadful, horrific, disgusting act. The US going to war puts the world in danger.

It may be that war is the way it has to be, but I hope the people who make the decisions think and pray long and hard first.

quote:

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And truth be told, I could not care less about removing hatred from these monsters' hearts. They are welcome to hate from now until the time we send ten thousand tons of ordnance up their collective ass.

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Erin, anyone unfamiliar with your florid expressions of anger is going to see this as reckless. By using the faceless phrase "these monsters" and picking as your appropriate response "ten thousand tons of ordnance" it is understandable to me that people would fill in the blanks to translate "these monsters" to mean thousands of people who would be killed in a military strike. If you just meant the few dozens or hundreds of people directly responsible for the attack, people would probably have expected you to say "publicly hanged in downtown New York City, where the families of the victims would have a decent chance to spit on them."

Also, in saying that you don't care about removing hatred from the faceless, unnamed monsters' hearts that you are not particular about who exactly gets hurt by your 10,000 tons of ordinance.

"We will be patient"

However much his citizens may be baying for blood, wanting the big guns out, demanding precipitate action, I hope he will be patient and measured in his response, and gain international consensus.

Incidentally many have said this is a war of democracy against terrorism. It is not, it must be those who believe in the rule of law (whether or not democratic, and perhaps including dictatorships) against terrorism.

It is also important that we do not see this as a war against Islam. It is a war against fundamentalist terrorism, and those of us who claim to be christians must be aware of the history of terrorist acts by christians against Muslims, particularly in the crusades. Fundamentalisms of all sorts can lead to atrocities, and liberals of all sorts must seek for reasonable, measured behaviour. If our emotions tend to lead us into unchristian behaviour, we should transcend, sanctify or sublimate those instincts.

However time doesn't heal. Hatred will grow unless identified and dealt with.

I'm scared too even though I live in London about what is going to happen next (Working in London during the height of the IRA's bombing didn't do too much for my sense of security).

Last week a school was bombed in Northern Ireland and that makes me sick.

Justice where is it. We believe in it so much but when needed it cruelly lets us down.

So we take an eye but that only blinds others but doesn't really make us feel better and the hurt and emptiness just does not go away.

Sorry for ranting ship mates.

These people chose planes with the largest fuel load. They picked targets for high body counts. They took the time to plan and train. They were aided and abetted by country(s) and government(s). This is not a crime but an act of war.

And we will respond in kind.

You cannot have a new Cold war with terrorists and the governments that shelter, and foster them. We have tried sanctions, political negotiations and concessions. It hasn't worked.

Yesterdays events mark the begining of a new world war, it will not be fought as the World Wars of the 20th century were fought, neither will it be a war of apocolypse and nuclear warheads, but it will be a war.

If nothing is done then we all live in fear that the same things will happen again and agian. If we institute a pseudo police state and live in fear for 20 years the threat will still not go away.

Afghanistan will likely be one of the first countries to be effected, but the War will be fought for over 10 years, and to win the West must wipe out the forces arrayed against it.

To think that we can go back to our homes and Jobs with nothing changed is extremely shortsighted. I hate war, but this war already exists and has been escalated to a point that it must be clearly fought and won. It's not going away folks.

i can't take that in.

See you all in a few days.

Love,

There is nothing to be done that would match that. But hell knows, I do not want to be around when God calls 'em all to judgement!