9-11-12

I listened to my parents wax on about the day the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor, and I really didn't understand until that November day in Dallas when the President came to visit.  From that point on, the assassination was a marker by which everything was measured.  Before or after.

That day has been eclipsed by today's date.

Days marking such momentous and tragic events always will serve as anchors in our memories because they are obvious changes in the timeline of our existence.  Like some science fiction story, they mark where one history begins and another continues.  Sometimes I feel like there is another reality where Kennedy served out his term, where the Japanese came to their senses and where a dozen zealots never board airplanes with the intent of turning them into flying bombs.

That is the timeline that was stolen by those days and it is for that I mourn.

Silly musing I suppose, but I sincerely believe we can work to bring the trajectory of the present back in line with the path history should have been on.  We can do it with our actions.  We can do it by teaching peace, tolerance and justice.

I guess that is what life is really about, trying to move toward a more perfect order, striving to find solutions that do not involve splitting the timeline and veering off into some bizarre alternate future.

That seems like something well worth working toward.

May you find peace and reflection this day and turn your thoughts and actions toward bringing that peace to the world.