Peggy Noonan today writes about the sounds of 9/11 "beyond the metallic roar." It's a moving column. Excerpt:
I think too about the sounds that came from within the buildings and within the planes--the phone calls and messages left on answering machines, all the last things said to whoever was home and picked up the phone. They awe me, those messages.
Something terrible had happened. Life was reduced to its essentials. Time was short. People said what counted, what mattered. It has been noted that there is no record of anyone calling to say, "I never liked you," or, "You hurt my feelings." No one negotiated past grievances or said, "Vote for Smith." Amazingly --or not--there is no record of anyone damning the terrorists or saying "I hate them."
No one said anything unneeded, extraneous or small. Crisis is a great editor. When you read the transcripts that have been released over the years it's all so clear.
Noonan has a line -- "People are often stronger than they know, bigger, more gallant than they'd guess" -- that prompted Frederica Mathewes-Green to e-mail the following observation:
This line reminds me of something Anglican Bp William Rukirande of Uganda told me. He wore a cross that had belonged to Janani Luwum, who had been killed by Idi Amin; he had lived through that terrible history. He said that before the persecution began, church members were ordinary -- fallible, backbiting, greedy, unforgiving, all that. But when the martyrdoms began, the grace of the Holy Spirit began to flow, and everyone became brave and loving, ready to be martyrs. It was grace given in context.
I remember an American bishop asking abt that time what the US church could do to support the Ugandan church, what could we send them, and he said "clergy shirts". Which seemed an odd or even frivolous request. He said they were necessary so that "when our people are being taken to death, they can look and see that their clergy are among them".
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Great post. Thanks. This will be in my mind as I take in the coverage of the anniversary.>
>Something terrible had happened. Life was reduced to its essentials. Time was short. People said what counted, what mattered. It has been noted that there is no record of anyone calling to say, "I >never liked you," or, "You hurt my feelings." No one negotiated past grievances or said, "Vote for Smith." Amazingly --or not--there is no record of anyone damning the terrorists or saying "I hate them."
>No one said anything unneeded, extraneous or small. Crisis is a great editor.
Perhaps only the more-or-less saintly among us - or the dying - live within a 24-7 "moral equivalent of impending doom." I am reminded of the veteran rift obtaining between Andy Griffith and the late Frances Bavier (Aunt Bee to his Andy Taylor on the immortal sitcom). The grudge she bore against the affable, folksy Andy, so unlike her doting onscreen benevolence, hatched early and seemed to spring from the embittered depths of a personal past within, unrelated to any offense on Andy's part. It persisted for decades unto a cat-soaked reclusive hermitage - and afflicted many a male colleague as well, flash-frozen by turns under the wintry breath of an inveterate and brittle Ice Queen.
Then cancer and heart disease found her reading life's unsleeping clock at 11:59 pm Eternal Daylight Time. She picked up her phone, and, hearing Andy's voice, began her apology: it was all my fault and none of yours and had to do with me alone and not you. She wished him well and rang off.
Within days she came to final sleep in a peace more heavenly than otherwise likely, thanks to her having made good, while sand still sifted visibly through life's hourglass, her omission in prior grace.
And that's the news from Mayberry, RFD - where all the fish are jumpin', all the lawmen grin from ear to ear - and all the Sheriff's Deputies shoot only at their own feet.>
Great story about Ms. Bavier, Scott. I didn't know that.
There's only one woman in the world more amazing than Peggy Noonan, and I had the good fortune to marry her.>
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