Here's something you might be interested in.
I meandered to 1st Presbyterian's 9-11 concert. I thought the concert was at La Jolla Presbyterian because the La Jolla Presbyterian Choir was singing in the concert.
The parking in La Jolla is better than downtown and the church isn't as hot. However, in La Jolla there is no opportunity to run the homeless gauntlet that surrounds 1st Presbyterian. I think in my heart I wanted the concert to be in La Jolla.
The church was closed so I reviewed the Facebook invite, cursed, and hustled downtown.
I got there a bit late, passed through the gauntlet and caught the last half of Rene Clausen's Memorial.
I was moved by the spirit of the music. It was a spirit of reconciliation and healing.
Then Dr. Ogilvie got up to speak. Dr. Ogilvie was the chaplain of the Senate during the original 9/11 incident.
Dr. Ogilvie managed to defecate on the the music that preceded him.
"If I speak in the tongues of men or of angels, but do not have love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal."--1st Corinthians 13.
To hear him speak, one would assume that Barry White made sweet love to Darth Vader and produced the Stentor I heard speaking before me.
Dr. Ogilvie had the voice of an angel but there was no love in his message.
I only heard an obnoxious clanging about cowardly terrorists and heroic Americans.
I had to retire to the foyer in order to retain my composure.
I realized that Dr. Ogilvie was speaking as though he were a child. His message could have been about an incident that occurred on a playground instead of the world stage.
"I didn't do anything, he just hit me for no reason."
I felt sad for Dr. Ogilvie. I felt sad to live in a country that believes it has done nothing wrong--a country that never seeks forgiveness.
Fortunately Walt Whitman and Vaughan Williams were there to clean up after the toddler spoke.
As I followed the text of Vaughan Williams' Dona Nobis Pacem, Grant Us Peace, which includes three poems by Whitman, I began to weep.
I wept for the 50,000+ Iraqi civilians who have been killed in the name of American freedom and liberty. I wept at the thought of a country conceived in liberty killing out of vengeance. I wept because Whitman's words described a landscape of misery that we have created in a country that is not our own.
I wept because everywhere I see a message that says "Never Forget" but nowhere do I see, "Forgive and Forget."
"Word over all, beautiful as the sky,
Beautiful that war and all its deeds of carnage must in time be utterly lost,
That the hands of the sisters Death and Night incessantly softly wash again and ever again, this soiled world;
For my enemy is dead, a man divine as myself is dead,
I look where he lies white-faced and still in the coffin - I draw near,
Bend down and touch lightly with my lips the white face in the coffin." -Whitman
50,000 faces as divine as my own, as divine as your own. Will they forgive and forget?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FobMXNvE1Xs&feature=autoplay&list=ULnkeuNLT2eDU&lf=mfu_in_order&playnext=11
I meandered to 1st Presbyterian's 9-11 concert. I thought the concert was at La Jolla Presbyterian because the La Jolla Presbyterian Choir was singing in the concert.
The parking in La Jolla is better than downtown and the church isn't as hot. However, in La Jolla there is no opportunity to run the homeless gauntlet that surrounds 1st Presbyterian. I think in my heart I wanted the concert to be in La Jolla.
The church was closed so I reviewed the Facebook invite, cursed, and hustled downtown.
I got there a bit late, passed through the gauntlet and caught the last half of Rene Clausen's Memorial.
I was moved by the spirit of the music. It was a spirit of reconciliation and healing.
Then Dr. Ogilvie got up to speak. Dr. Ogilvie was the chaplain of the Senate during the original 9/11 incident.
Dr. Ogilvie managed to defecate on the the music that preceded him.
"If I speak in the tongues of men or of angels, but do not have love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal."--1st Corinthians 13.
To hear him speak, one would assume that Barry White made sweet love to Darth Vader and produced the Stentor I heard speaking before me.
Dr. Ogilvie had the voice of an angel but there was no love in his message.
I only heard an obnoxious clanging about cowardly terrorists and heroic Americans.
I had to retire to the foyer in order to retain my composure.
I realized that Dr. Ogilvie was speaking as though he were a child. His message could have been about an incident that occurred on a playground instead of the world stage.
"I didn't do anything, he just hit me for no reason."
I felt sad for Dr. Ogilvie. I felt sad to live in a country that believes it has done nothing wrong--a country that never seeks forgiveness.
Fortunately Walt Whitman and Vaughan Williams were there to clean up after the toddler spoke.
As I followed the text of Vaughan Williams' Dona Nobis Pacem, Grant Us Peace, which includes three poems by Whitman, I began to weep.
I wept for the 50,000+ Iraqi civilians who have been killed in the name of American freedom and liberty. I wept at the thought of a country conceived in liberty killing out of vengeance. I wept because Whitman's words described a landscape of misery that we have created in a country that is not our own.
I wept because everywhere I see a message that says "Never Forget" but nowhere do I see, "Forgive and Forget."
"Word over all, beautiful as the sky,
Beautiful that war and all its deeds of carnage must in time be utterly lost,
That the hands of the sisters Death and Night incessantly softly wash again and ever again, this soiled world;
For my enemy is dead, a man divine as myself is dead,
I look where he lies white-faced and still in the coffin - I draw near,
Bend down and touch lightly with my lips the white face in the coffin." -Whitman
50,000 faces as divine as my own, as divine as your own. Will they forgive and forget?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FobMXNvE1Xs&feature=autoplay&list=ULnkeuNLT2eDU&lf=mfu_in_order&playnext=11