ashes to ashes, dust to dust
I will show you fear in a handful of dust

I am with many here, Americans, who feel our lives will never be the same. Looking up at airplanes will never feel the same. Standing next to a skyscraper will never feel the same. Walking into a large government building won't be a safe feeling for most of us for a long, long time.

Ordinary things, ordinary places are different. Vastly changed. For me, it includes dust. From now on, when I see a dust covered car, when I see a picture of a city street, covered in dust and soot my mind will go back to the last 24 hours. The images of an entire American city-THE American city, falling to the ground, then gone. Clouds of dust, racing toward the cameras and toward of crowd of people who can't believe, cannot comprehend that 110 floors, almost an acre of steel, concrete and glass can fall before them like so many poorly stacked dominos.

"Why were so many rescue workers so close," someone asked me. Where else would they be, I said. That was their job. No one could have imagined that the initial tragedies, an unknown number of people trapped in two burning buildings and two plane crashes could be made worse-insignificant. But it did and it was. And we saw it. The sky did indeed fall. Images too terrible to watch, too compelling not to look at. Over and over again.

I pray for all the victims and the families. And I hope all of us can gain something from this, but it's too early for me to see what it can be at this point. For me the dust will not settle for many years.

Thanks to the management for a brave, energetic job during the past few days.

I am proud to be a noder