On the tv news tonight, a fire fighter from New York on the scene at 9-11 says somberly and without joy, that ‘today is a good day. ‘A New Yorker elder at Ground Zero says in his Irish-tinged voice, ‘Thank the Lord this has happened though we still feel pity for the families’. Another New York firefighter who has joined the cheering crowds in New York, says, ‘9-11 was an act of war that took 323 of my firefighter brothers. 9-11 changed our lives in horrible ways,’ he says quietly.

It makes me think back to another firefighter and a police officer, both of whom were ‘on the pile’ for so months and months after 9-11. Removing debris was the least of it,. They were daily marking with spray cans of paint in big yellow and red X’s where there were body parts, an arm, a hand, a leg, a finger, a torso, an eye, a head, a leg bone… of the dead.

So “Today is a good day.” I would ‘second that emotion.’ Even though my emotions and thoughts are many, some colliding, some sorrowful, some ‘steady as she goes.’

Whenever I hear someone say ‘poor bin Laden, poor this, poor that,’ I remember the innocents I saw jumping from the flaming orange, blazing twin trade towers from dozens of floors up. I remember how I wanted to begin screaming, pick their tiny bodies up in mid air and somehow transport them elsewhere. The thoughts, the irrational thoughts we have go through our minds in the midst of trauma. My goodness.

There is much understanding in my heart about the egregious ways of the world, but there is no quarter for bin Laden’s choice to bomb and murder his way through life, nor his encouraging and funding others to do his filth for him.

There’s no quarter in me either, for grieving over his pathetic wasted life, wherein with his vast Saudi wealth, he could have done so much for the poor, the ill, the uneducated, so much.

But he chose to murder life literally across the world instead, young sailors, citizens, it didnt matter to him, just as targets dont matter to a psychopathic murderer; the point is to chose the sexual thrill of violence against innocents. His blowfish inflation of having control over the very lives of innocents was Osama bin Ladin’s sick, sick stock in trade.

And these many years later, ‘his people’ are still poorer than poor, if not even more so than before he began his self-lauding rhetoric. And bin Laden had every resource, far far beyond yours and mine, to cause the lives of millions, to be lifted up.

But, he chose the guise of a phony holy man who despite his studied dulcet tones, was screaming murder, murder murder in his blackened, burnt-out heart. He had choices. So many wondrous choices within his reach. He chose abject evil instead.

Some may think him a ‘martyr’… that would be a failure of observational skills. He followed no faith of love of God, no love for those God created. He followed the self-annointed GodOsama, his self-made mirror image. A ‘martyr’ dies for ‘the faith.’ Osama lived and died for himself, his own diseased version not of justice, but of vengeance. Osama is a trust fund mass-murderer.

There’s a saying in the bible, quoted from just this week at the wedding of Prince William and his bride. It tells how to go in this world… with quietude, with mercy, with love… and as for vengeance, to not take vengeance against tribes and peoples, for that alone is the province of eyes greater, that is to a Creator God. Osama didnt differentiate. It’s one thing to kill a maddened dog with rabies. It’s another to kill innocents. Qurran, Torah, Tanakh, Sutras, Bible, though one can find passages by demented angry writers claiming to be writing the words of God, the greater number of passages relate to creation, inner-tribal law, mercy, peace, accord, prayer, leading a decent life.

Tonight I am thinking of the one-hundred and sixty 9-11 ‘surviving families’ I’ve worked with out of California through the Victims’ Assistance funds… those who lost their beloveds who were returning to California on Sept 11 and were in the airplanes highjacked by Osama bin Laden’s stripjoint hanging out, ‘religious terrorists.’

Tonight I am thinking of the working class community in New Jersey where I’ve worked with survivors of the trade towers bombing and also surviving families. So many of them workmen and workwomen in the Towers, janitors, window washers, waiters, humble people all.

I am in all cases thinking of the stories told to me in confidence, their stories of where and when and how on 9-11 that are so deep and so horrendous and so painful that every few hours I had to go outdoors and just bend over, chest to knees, and sob. Then, back into the ring again, still strong. But written upon, deeply carved into by stories of such loss.

I am thinking of all of them. To me in contrast to the demonically mentally ill bin Laden, they are The Blessed Ones.

There will be much speculation, lashing about, faultfinding, protectionism, Bushism, Obamaism, Clintonism, and all else of human ways, sometimes fractured and flying about, in the next few days about this matter of Osama being dead. I hope I have not been too harsh here in my assessment of bin Laden. It’s just that for years I have seen, first hand, face to face, the horrible suffering his smiling murdering mind has had on innocent human beings he devastated on purpose and without mercy.

But also, I hope this moment will unite us and not divide us. I hope all will give credit to all who have tried to capture bin Laden, for we and the world ought not let ourselves be overrun by easy helpless outrage, sarcasm that gains no ground, and cynicism that creates no new world, but rather what is our birthright, to be at the top of being well and going well, to caring and mending whatever we can that is within our reach. To each his or her own. In their own ways, as each sees best.

I’d just ask, in whatever way you believe, you keep all the communion of the Dead innocents in mind, and especially the survivors and survivor families and all the professional pride of our times: the police officers, firefighters, all the rescue and barge workers, all the truck drivers, all the shovelers and morgue people, all the funeral home people, all medics and nurses, taxi and ER drivers, all citizen helpers of which there were thousands, and all us thousands of post-trauma recovery workers too. Our warriors, everywhere. Please keep us all in your thoughts at this time. Secondary post-trauma can sometimes arise when there is a sudden news, even news perceived as positive.

There is much more to say, but for now, this is nearly all I can. I just want to stagger outside now, here in the Rockies, under the night sky and just breathe. Just breathe the pine scented air, listen for the big owls, and remember all the good souls of this earth, including you. I can feel a thin dam holding back a river of tears. It will hold, I think, just long enough to complete these last sentences, then throw on my parka and head out under the stars.

Thank you for listening, and just being with. Back at you.

with kindest regards,
dr.e