A Multitude, but unified.

It's not even two full weeks since Black Tuesday, and in lieu of my usual article, I found these thoughts and words. My area at the Suite is called "Cultures & Communities", where the wonderful diversity of life in the US (and also the world) is examined, explained and presented. Reading just the topic list underscores how differently we cherish our past, our cultures, and our daily lives.

The ability to do that, to hold tight to our differences is nowhere more evident than in the USA. This usual cacophony of different voices, agendas, and interests was silenced last week by the terrorist events at NYC, the Pentagon and Pennsylvannia. It is amazing how our differences disappear when we are threathened by extraordinarily evil events. I was in Mahwah, NJ when the WTC was struck. Mahwah is about 22 miles northwest of New York. Almost everyone there has some direct connection to it. Immediately people of all different social strata amd ethnicity clustered around the nearest media device (TV, radio, web site). Dialogues began between people who might never have interacted with each other.

Amazingly out of all this diversity has come a simple response. We stand together opposing this terrible event and the people who did it. Yes, life will go on, our differences and petty arguments will resurface somewhere down the line, but for now this event has strengthened us as Americans. United we will rebuild, and bring an end to terrorism.

Out of a country often seen as weak and waffling about it's policies by those who don't understand the amazing confusion of the democratic process, and believed fragmented by those who see us as only different factions and classes, I say "Out of a mutitude, one people, one voice". The USA has responded as it always has in times of national peril, as a single entity with a single voice.

The events of the past week will always remain in our memories; our lives forever changed, our country forever demanding (and getting) the best that is in all of us.

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