9/11 at the Cathedral [Featuring Buddhist Nun, Hindu Priest; Islamic Leaders: NO Catholics]

On Sunday, the Episcopal Church’s National Cathedral in Washington, D.C. will host “A Call to Compassion” to commemorate 9/11. President Obama will attend and speak at the concluding “Concert for Hope.” Patti LaBelle will sing. CNN’s Anderson Cooper will host. After the recent earthquake and the collapse of a crane, the cathedral has gone “on the road” and relocated its 9/11 events to a nearby synagogue and the Kennedy Center.

Controversy has surrounded the cathedral’s choice of spiritual representatives. Although its prayer service will include the President of the Islamic Society of North America, a Buddhist nun, and a Hindu, evangelicals and conservative Protestants were omitted, though they represent 30-40 percent of Americans. No Catholic is listed on the event website. So liberal Episcopal clergy apparently will represent Christianity. On Thursday, a cathedral spokesman told The New York Times that a Baptist may be invited.

Hopefully the “Days of Compassion” will tastefully commemorate 9/11. But this weekend’s events almost certainly will not compare to the exalted tones of the National Cathedral’s post 9/11 service, held just 3 days after the attacks. All of official Washington attended, as did all living former presidents, except an ailing Ronald Reagan, who was represented by Nancy. President George W. Bush memorably spoke, as did a Jewish rabbi, Muslim imam and the Catholic Archbishop of Washington. Hymns included the "Battle Hymn of the Republic" and "Mighty Fortress is our God," both suitably robust for a nation looking to regain its footing.

Patti LaBelle?

The SAME Patti Labelle whose GOONS attacked a West Point cadet outside an airport because he was in “her space” as he spoke on his phone?

The SAME Patti Labelle whose GOONS beat him into semi-consciousness, then concocted a story with the help of fawning police who had their picture taken with her?

The SAME Patti Labelle whose concocted story had the cadet ejected from West Point?

That piece of crap has no right to be there. If there were justice, she would be behind bars, that talentless, worthless has-been anti-American whore, instead of singing in the National Cathedral. This day will be soiled because of her presence.

So, he is going to discriminate against Christians. According to a 2008 survey by the “American Religious Identification Survey” of the 48 continuous states did a “random-digit-dialing survey”. Respondents were asked to describe themselves by answering an open-ended question. Of those asked, 173,402,000 identified themselves as one or another Christian denomination (57,199,000 identified themselves as Catholic). Of those asked 14,331,000 said they didn't have a religion. The remainder divided themselves among Jewish (2,680,000), Muslim (1,249,000), Buddhist (1,189,000), Unitarian/Universalist (586,000), Hindu (582,000), Native American (186,000), Wicca (342,000), Pagan (340,000), Spiritualist (426,000), “other classified” (325,000).

So, the main religions of the U.S. (Christians and Jews) are not invited, but three of the religions with the least memberships HAVE been invited. I wonder if the crosses will have to be covered again?

I am going to take a break from all this for the next 24 hours.

I remarked to my wife that not a single day has gone by since 9/11 where it didn’t enter my thoughts at least once.

It kind of staggered me to realize that. Amazing. I feel just as angry about it today as I did back then, it is as if every time it comes up, a scab is ripped off.

It seems like every single thing I read or hear irritates me or pisses me off about it.

Tomorrow, I will remember those who died on 9/11 and their families.

I will mourn the loss of our military personnel who have given their lives so that the battle is fought on foreign shores, and not here at home.

I will feel the anger towards those who perpetrated 9/11 and their apologists, and pray to God for the strength to come to terms with it, find inner peace and someday, perhaps, even forgive them.

I will remind myself yet again that there is evil in the world, that evil and aggression are attracted to weakness in the way sharks are attracted to blood. Whether we were weak or not isn’t really the main issue, it is that we were perceived as such. And we still are. And liberals perpetuate it, both knowingly and unknowingly through their infuriating inability and refusal to understand or accept reality, and their unshakeable belief in utopian ideals.

I had this dream about a week after 9/11. I woke up in the middle of the night, and had to sit down at the computer and type it out before I forgot it, though in retrospect, I never did forget it. The details and feeling of that nightmare are as fresh right now as if I had just woken up.

I am standing in a room. It is not square, or rectangular, it is irregular. The ceiling is low, and there is no furniture. The walls are white or grey. The room opens on several sides, to darkness. They must be stairwells.

All around, there is smoke, and silent panic.

There are men in white shirts and ties, women wearing slacks and flat-heeled shoes, all looking at me with large black eyes. If there is any white in their eyes, I cannot see it.

Next to me is a firefighter. Thick, black, coat. Boots. Helmet. He is silently looking at the people who, though spread out, somehow seem to be huddling together. Nobody is speaking, but the silent scream of panic is tangible. Everyone seems poised, for what I don’t know. They all seem to be looking at me.

I notice how heavy everything feels, the coat, the helmet, the oxygen tank on my back. The boots on my feet feel like leaden weights. In my left arm, I am holding something large and disk shaped. It must be a coiled canvas fire hose that I carried up here. In my right hand, I am holding a shaft of some type. It occurs to me that it must be an axe, the same kind that Jack Nicholson wielded in the movie The Shining. It weighs a ton. I weigh a ton. I think of the paratroopers who jumped out of C-47’s on D-Day in World War II. They couldn’t move, and I don’t feel like I can, either.

Although I am not breathing heavily, I feel fatigue that penetrates right through my muscles to the bone. Everything burns, as if I am running a marathon. Just standing there, I feel like I am at the bottom of the ocean with the weight of miles of ocean resting on top of me.

Time to move.

I take a breath, and call out in the most confident and commanding voice I can muster “Okay everyone, follow me, we are going to go down this stairwell.” As I turn around and take a step into the darkened pit, black, malicious, evil smoke billows up from the depths. Everywhere in the advancing clouds where there is a hole or diminished density of smoke, dark, but bright tangerine globules of flaming intensity surge forward trying to be free of the smoke. I instantly spin around, shouting to the crowd “We have to find another way!” At that moment, a thick metal I-beam appears from above and crushes the firefighter standing next to me. I am aware of things coming through the ceiling, everywhere. Big things. Small things. It is raining. People are running everywhere, in every direction, screaming and yelling. I reach down, grabbing the neck of the coat of the crushed fireman, and begin to drag him with one hand. I seem to have superhuman strength. As I begin to drag him by the collar to one of the stairwells, I shout out “Everybody, this way!” I know that no one can hear me. I know they are past the point of listening or even hearing. I know all this without even thinking about it, or knowing it.

Then everything is dark, and I wake up.

I still have this email from that day. I wrote it to myself...

On Sep 11, 2001, at 11:21 AM, ******* wrote:

It was a day, that for me was not much different than any other day in my recent life. I got up early, ate cereal for breakfast, stayed in the shower longer than I should have and went to work the way I normally do. I got upset at the same things that always made me upset, and got excited about the kinds of things that made me excited. I walked through the day the way I always have. Until Michelle Ayotte showed up in my doorway, life was pretty much the same as it had been. At 9:20 AM EST, things changed. Everything else was the same as it had been before. The sun was shining brightly with a nice breeze, Canadian Geese took to the air as they ever did. But my whole life changed at that moment. A rubicon was crossed, and it marked a division in the landscape of my life as clearly and unequivocally as a land mass is divided by an ocean on a map. When I crossed that ocean, I closed my door and was unable to look back at the land I had left behind me, because I knew it was in the past, and the voyage ahead of me was going to be very different than the one I left behind.

Note the time. It was less than an hour after the North Tower fell.

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