As I sit here this evening I watch the sun going down.  The sky above the hills that surround the bay I am perched on a friend’s balcony above is slowly moving through a spectrum of colours, from blue, to yellow to a gorgeous deep red that I can see right now.  Criss-crossing the sky are three of four contrails that have they, themselves, produced a brilliant series of oranges and reds cutting the sky.

    Seeing these jet trails and the ships that we still allow in our harbour, I was struck by one thought.  I called my good friend out to me and asked her the following question, ‘How can anyone do what they have done when something like this exists?’  She did not; of course, have an answer. 

    You know, I think that it was at this point that I was struck the hardest by the events of the past few days.  It’s not that there had been no effect until this point, all day Tuesday I was filled with feelings of dread and horror at what had happened but even these feelings were capped by a stunned deadness inside of me.  Right now, as I look at this sky I was struck by how alien the actions of those few people truly seemed to m. 

    It is partly the fact that life, almost all life, is a marvel of nature that can be appreciated in the same way as this spectrum of light.  But much more so it is the fact that every single person in those buildings that day had the potential to stand right here beside me and appreciate this glorious image in the same way that I do.  Even, if I force myself to think about it the terrorists themselves; though twisted with hatred, rage, and an almost focal point-like close-mindedness, they too must have a capacity for love.   And if this is possible, if I could take any one of these people and have them appreciate this beauty as I do, why, how, could they do what they have done?

    I asked this question of another person who stepped out to look at the sky and he provided a response to my question that I had not previously considered.  ‘What if the terrorists believed that the thing that they were fighting for was to make sure that this beauty was not taken from them?  That in their minds there was something as important, as deep, or perhaps even more meaningful that this beauty is to me, which was being threatened.‘  This stopped me and made me think differently for a second.

    So now I ask myself, would I fight for this, would I fight for a world that can something that rocks me back in my heals like this sky?  The answer is no, for in the end it is just a sky.  There are a million places, a million ways, to find beauty such as this all over our world and lives.  Every day, in every place, this potential is there.  Even beyond that, there is something so much more important, so much more wonderful.  The most wondrous thing that I can imagine, something so much more important that the reflection of light on dust and water particles in the sky, is people.  The minds that can embrace it for not only what it is but also for what it can be.  There can be no greater treasure than this. 

    The number of people lost this week, the shear horror of these numbers, is completely beyond my understanding.  These are people.  That should be enough, they were people.  This is something that I could fight for, that I could believe in; something that goes to my very core.  Anyone that could kill so many, that would tear this ability from so many… and not just those that have fallen, what about those that have made it through, or those whose friends and families did not.  Will these people ever get past this event to where they can see this beauty once again?  Or will they be ever bereft of this ability?

    I don’t think I have an answer to these questions.  Right now I have trouble understanding the events of this week.  But now, as the very final wisps of colour drain from the sky, as I am left with the  bleak darkness that may only be lifted by the rising of the moon, I am no longer certain that I want to share a planet with people who could do these things.

Will any day just be another day again?