How did we go from Lady Liberty to a Memorial for 3000 innocents and where do we go from here?

The most welcoming country in the world; The United States of America.  “Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free.”  We are still that country!  America is Liberty.  Liberty is what all people yearn for.

I walked by the 9/11 Memorial. I looked up at the new tower and from where I stood the tower pierced the blue sky, the sun glinting off the shiny hard outer shell.  The hard shell was soft inside.  The softness came from the people who now work in the new tower.  Just as the 3000 softened the two towers that used to stand nearby.  Those towers, the hard shells and soft insides are gone now.  There are beautiful holes where those towers once stood.  I see people from all over the world here.  I see them talking, but I don’t hear them.  This place with thousands of names stamped in metal has a thousand more people wondering, as I am, about what this all means.  I am alone on my journey.  Most of the others are here with someone.  They get to try to work this out together as I struggle to make my own sense of it.  The water rushes over the edge and into a black hole.  Is the water perpetual or is the darkness pulling it in?  Is there no escape?  Is the water destined for the darkness?  I am calm even with thoughts of this Greek Tragedy playing out in front of me.  They are beautiful holes filled with beautiful souls.  And I see it now; the beautiful souls rush to the darkness to give it light.  The souls need the darkness as much as the darkness needs the souls.  Together they give peace to the people who come here.

They are here for us now.  They are welcoming.  They tell us not to fear. They tell us, “Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free.”