Yes, I know, a September 11th paper fourteen days late......... Sorry, I had to wait for my english teacher to return it. I hope the wait was worth it.


School
By: Rebecca Williams

Everyone has a defining moment in their life- that moment in which time stands still and the door slams shut in our face. For many of us it is a loss of something dear to our hearts. Our faith waivers, our hearts speed and slow sporadically, and we think, oh, oh God: why? We are left with questions unanswered, with feelings yet to be felt and with the venerability of a babe. It is in moments such as these that we learn the most, no matter how painful it might be. It just so happened that much of the world found itself in that state of desolation one day in September during my sophomore year of high school.

I can clearly remember that day, though to tell the truth I wasn’t incredibly affected. I didn’t cry or shake or pray. I simply hugged myself tightly and watched as the screen flashed it’s bright lights and harsh news across the airwaves to my chemistry class. That day I told two people they had made a difference in my life. And as I looked in their eyes I had almost a happy feeling, though inside I felt sick.

The next day I went to See You at the Pole, a Christian prayer session held at the school flag pole once a year. Standing there before the service, I heard several people to my left talking. One of the girls was busy explaining to the others that God had no part in this disaster. God had not wanted this to happen.

How silly what they said sounded. If God had not wanted this to happen, why did it occur? Why would an almighty Being allow anything to come to pass that It’s own divine power had not fashioned? I had my answers, though I could think of plenty of questions for them. To me the world is a classroom, each day another period in school. The only purpose of existing is to learn. The lessons to be learned from this were great, both politically and spiritually. A tragedy of this magnitude was only a full class project, due on some unforeseen day. When I left the vigil, I was one among few in the world who felt that way.

Time continued and life followed, just as life always does. A year of great growth and learning had passed in my life and for a few weeks I felt completely secure in my being. Things could go wrong, and indeed they did; but I could always find my way back to center, back to focus, back to breathing. School was trying, with its AP classes and piles of homework. Marching band was worse with its everyday practices and demands that I must be the perfect leader in every moment of every day. At night I would sit in my backyard by the pool, take deep breaths, and look at the stars, wondering at their beauty. I could find my way back to center, and I felt truly divine.

Homecoming week finally arrived, as did that fateful day in September. As a memorial to those lost and the ones they left behind, a huge assembly of the entire school district was held in the football stadium. As a member of the band, I was required to stand on the field and play the Star Spangled Banner while the ROTC presented the flag. We marched onto the field and proceeded to wait for another thirty minutes. The elementary school students arrived slightly late and their required little bobbing lines slowed down their pace tremendously.

As we stood on the field, the speakers pumped patriotic music forth to the ears of everyone. There was not one song that did not praise the Christian God; even the pledge of allegiance included it. I cannot say that among those waves of red, white, and blue t-shirts, those swaying plastic flags, and those declarations of “everyone’s” God, that I felt secure in my being.

Finally we played the anthem and marched to our seats. The entire drum line, excluding myself, began to wrap their white sticks in blue and red tape. The poked, nagged, and repeatedly asked me to join them. I did not. As the service continued, more ‘God bless yous” were said, and more flags were raised. The band was required to rise for several religious, patriotic songs. Many times my hand formed a peace sign and my beliefs rode upon those tormenting waves of patriotic pride. When we eventually sat, I wrote “Give peace a chance” on the palm of my hand. Though I wished for an end of war, what I really wanted was peace of mind.

After the two-and-a-half hour service was through, we carried our chairs back to the band hall and returned to our classes. I have long been in the minority of people during my life. Different beliefs, different thoughts, different feelings have set me apart in this lifetime, yet I have never felt as alone as I did during that rally with the “brothers and sisters” of my nation, “under God.” I have never felt more outcast or painfully unique in those two and a half hours and the lunch that followed. It was not until later that day in English that I would realize what jewels that experience had brought me.

The world is a classroom, each day another period in school. Our lessons are events, events that we relentlessly take notes on, gathering data and forming our own conclusions. It is those defining moments which shape our lives. September 11th, 2002, a year after the terrorist attacks, I had my own defining moment. People are where they need to be, traveling down their own paths and across their own classrooms. We find ourselves in each moment only to life and to live is in essence to learn. We are not here by some huge astronomical coincidence, but because in this moment we are meant to learn and do great things with our existence. Everyone is on his or her way to enlightenment one life lesson at a time. Amen.


Ireland
Garth Brooks

They say mother earth is breathing
With each wave that finds the shore
Her soul rises in the evening
For to open twilights door
Her eyes are the stars in heaven
Watching o'er us all the while
And her heart it is in Ireland
Deep within the Emerald Isle

We are forty against hundreds
In someone elses bloody war
We know not why were fighting
Or what we're dying for
They will storm us in the morning
When the sunlight turns to sky
Death is waiting for its dance now
Fate has sentenced us to die

Ireland I am coming home
I can see your rolling fields of green
And fences made of stone
I am reaching out won't you take my hand
I'm coming home Ireland

Oh the captian he lay bleeding
I can hear him calling me
These men are yours now for the leading
Show them to their destiny
And as I look up all around me
I see the ragged tired and torn
I tell them to make ready
'Cause we're not waiting for the morn

Ireland I am coming home
I can see your rolling fields of green
And fences made of stone
I am reaching out won't you take my hand
I'm coming home Ireland

Now the fog is deep and heavy
As we forge the dark and fear
We can hear their horses breathing
As in silence we draw near
There are no words to be spoken
Just a look to say good-bye
I draw a breath and night is broken
AsI scream our battle cry

Ireland I am coming home
I can see your rolling fields of green
And fences made of stone
I am reaching out won't you take my hand
I'm coming home Ireland

I am home Ireland