Secularism (n): 1. a view that religion and religious considerations should be ignored or excluded from social and political matters. 2. an ethical system asserting that moral judgments should be made without reference to religious doctrine, as reward or punishment in an afterlife -- Free Online Dictionary, Thesaurus and Encyclopedia 2011
The specter of 9/11 is walking the streets of mankind’s memory. There’s a move afoot to hijack something even more important than the memory of what happened that terrible day ten years ago. In the sense of what could overshadow that day it seems pretty darned hard to surpass that tragedy. But, we MUST imprint upon our social DNA certain facts and place them above and beyond social, intellectual theory. It’s that something bigger than us brought us back from the brink of despair.
New York City has a heart. It’s vibrant and brightly lit. At any moment it’s populated by hundreds of thousands of people within a mere one mile radius of this geographical coronary artery of human industry and commerce. It’s where human ingenuity and mercantile contact makes a nation’s economy thrive.
It’s where man meets his economic destiny and does battle to move ahead and to remain the apex hunter of the planet. It’s where men and women contest to rise above their past fortunes. They meet annually to share the hedonistic pleasures of New Years Eve.
This is Times Square.
Times Square is a gathering place to celebrate and share the joys of humanity when individual members come into amassed contact with each other. It’s festive and bright. It glitters and flashes; demanding recognition as a memorable place. This is where New Yorkers define their heart’s location; the hub of the wheel, the center of attention, the nucleus of the inanimate in motion. Times Square is the heart of New York.
But, a mere four miles away, in an area known for a more quiet nature is a place where business was conducted. It’s quietly solemn now. It’s where the hustle and bustle and daily grindings of shoulders to economic wheels propelled this nation to a position of greatness. A better choice of words might be we exerted dominion over the world marketplace. It’s a place marker for the intellectual industry makes any economy work.
It is the World Trade Center Site.
Here, street corner merchants made box-lunches for delivery to the people housed in megalithic structures. It’s a place where street corner vendors hawked newspapers and others, hotdogs to passers-by, both native and tourist, alongside scions of market analysis and brokerages dealings stocks and bonds. Life teemed between the hours of eight-to-five then walked away to let the “second shift” enter. They continued the battle for business dominance by walking the hallways, from door to door removing the detritus left behind in office trashcans and alleyway dumpsters. It was an area of life and lifestyle wrapped into one.
But a handful of men, egotistical in their fundamentalist religious zeal; armed only with box-cutters and evil intent tore into the breastworks of New York seeking to eviscerate the heart. They were off-course. They were distanced from that heart by four miles and over 3000 lives as they collided with humanity and came up wanting for the effort. They wanted to tear out America’s heart but instead, inflamed its soul with a desire to go forward, to understand, and to do battle with those who’d harm us; and an overwhelming wish to survive.
The World Trade Center (WTC) is where America’s soul glows brightest. It details vitality and regeneration and a resurrection of spirit.
But what the hijackers couldn’t accomplish; Mayor Bloomberg is. When elected officials prefer self-centered secularism and ego over faith and hope for guidance from a greater, higher power they’re bending the faith of their constituency. When they claim greater knowledge of what exists over the wonder of all created before we existed; we have a problem. The hijacker’s spirit glows brighter for this benign insult to the soul of America.
Shame on you Bloomberg. We must maintain and express our faith in God because you’re destroying our trust in you.
Thanks for listening
