Remembering

"Will the Lord walk off and leave us for good? Will he never smile again? Is his love worn threadbare? Has God forgotten his manners? Has he angrily stalked off and left us? 'Just my luck,' I said, 'The High God goes out of business just the moment I need him.'" Psalm 77 (somewhere in the middle) "Don't you know what's next, can you see what's coming, all you barefaced liars? Pointed arrows and burning coals will be your reward." Psalm 120 (somewhere towards the beginning) "I look up to the mountains, does my strength come from the mountains? No my strength comes from God who made heaven and earth and mountains. He won't let you stumble; your Guardian God won't fall asleep. Not on your life! Your guardian will never doze or sleep. God's your guardian, right at your side to protect you -- sheilding you from sunstroke, sheltering you from moonstroke. God guards you from every evil, he guards your very life. He guards you when you leave and when you return, he guards you now, he guards you always." Psalm 121 (all of it) With such an emphasis today on prayer for all the victims of this week's tragedy I decided to read through some of the Psalms that I learned when I was a kid. Funny how some of them stuck out today as I read them. Psalm 77 really spoke to me of the depression and saddeness I feel when I think about all this stuff. Where are you God? Why did you allow this to happen to so many innocent people? I refuse to believe it is based on what those morons Falwell and Robertson said (that you are pissed at America for forgetting about you and allowing "secularism" into our society). In fact I fired off an e-mail tonight to Falwell telling him exactly how I felt about how much his comments went toward making the wounds deeper instead of healing them. Crazy that someone who considers himself to be a man of God could spew so much crap. But of course he does it to help bring in more money to his "ministry" since he funds it off of the backs of poor people who view God as that angry guy standing over the balconey of heaven waiting to nail us in the head with a brick every time we don't do what the preacher on TV says. The second reading really speaks to my anger at the people who perpetrated this terror on my country. They can't know what's next for them...but they better be frightened because we are going to blow their asses so far out of the water. I guess, that Psalmist says it a little bit nicer (all though how nice is it to call someone a barefaced liar), but still the reward won't be pretty and I hope it is as one staffer I heard say...way out of proportion to what has been done to us. Psalm 121 was always one of my favorite Psalms as a kid. I remember dad basing a sermon on it. He and his Partner were on a plane that nearly crashed in the middle of a storm. Where do you look during times of trouble and saddness? I've spent so much of my life right on the edge of trouble, but reading this Psalm always made me feel just a little bit safer. I think had I been on one of the planes, winging my way toward what they must have known would be certain death, I would have quoted this Psalm. Probably even out loud. God's always guarding us, when we leave and when we return. Now and always! Does that mean nothing bad will ever happen? I don't think so. Look at all those people on those flights. It would bring up the question, "how come God wasn't guarding them?" I can't really answer that, except to say that I won't always understand what goes on in this world. Sometimes evil wins a battle...but that doesn't mean evil is going to win the war. I lit a candle outside tonight to show my solidarity with the victims. It lasted a couple of minutes then blew out. I thought that was about appropriate for what happened in our world this week. So I brought the candle in and lit another one and am writing by candle light tonight. I decided against Tiesto tonight. Tonight I put in Sandra Collins (Transport 3), the song of the night is by Shane, C'Est Musique [Armin Van Bouren Remix] -- simply awe inspiring. I often have to be in the right mood for her but I was thinking about New Years and getting to hang with her for a while before her set at TogetherAsOne. It just seemed fitting to listen to her. Her set that night was so inspiring. Tomorrow is a new day. Soon this horrific week will be over and I for one will be glad of it. I had a terrible thought today. My dad leaves on Sunday for another trip. And all I could think of for a while was that his plane would crash. I even played in my head something like a phone call from him knowing he was going to die. How morbid. I'm tired of being morbid. It is time to rejoin life...I am alive...I think I'm going to start acting like it. I'm not going out tonight. I am going to sleep...to dream in silence waiting for the dawn of a new day! I think that is much like where the country is at right now...sitting in dark silence as we wait for a new day! j. ________________________________ Written on September 14, 2001 - National Day of Prayer and Rememberance for those who died on September 11, 2001.