Thank you for your report on the rolling requiem you were a part of. I heard that 10,000 people attended the one here at Safeco field. On a workday.
My hope is that all those attending were the equivalent of prayers reaching God from all around the world. Although it my sincere belief that those who were murdered were embraced in peace and love by God, and I wish, wish, wish that we had the courage as a country to have the cross from Ground Zero used as a symbol instead of that stupid sphere. I just cringe when I see that thing. I mean, if God sent us a cross and we chose the sphere instead to memorialize the victims, what does that say about us?
The municipal authorities (elections next month?) were going to hold a full-honors flag presentation for a sailor from Tucson who died in the attack on the Pentagon. Many of my group were surprised when each of the leaders of a dozen religious sects came forward to lead us in prayers. The Arab muslim, Indian Hindu, black Baptist and Orthodox Jew kept it short. Not so the Christian ministers or the white converts to Islam, B'ahai or Sikhism (who, BTW, couldn't stop fussing with their unaccustomed drapes). Their invocations seemed to be from a limited phrase book and "a country in which no one is ever excluded" was the distinct theme (sounded most conspicuously by Bishop Kicanas of the Tucson Diocese). I called their part of the event 'a multicultural nervous breakdown' since none of these leaders had anything rational to say to a nation under attack.
These invocations and artistic offerings extended the evening from the expected one hour to two-and-a-half. As I sat on the stage I was keenly aware of the solemn uniformed men and women, police and fire brass, and of the dead sailor's grandmother who were being forced to endure this pathetic and irrelevant spectacle. At one point a youngish white guy with a feather braided into the back of his hair sang what he called a Sufi healing chant. It fizzled when he couldn't get his voice around the complicated coda and the audience stifled their laughter.
The whole ghastly business made me angry for our uniformed defenders and that grieving grandmother. It's entirely possible, however, that many of those in attendance were moved to the political right that night, my fellow mostly apolitical choraleers and musicians among them.
One can only hope it told the politicians something that there were less than 30 attendees in the hall's 2000 seats for this multicultural train wreck.