Make it Green

[Jennie@ifish]

I don't usually post things like this, or send these things through e mail.
These are unusual times, however.
This touched me.
Jen

Make it green


September 14, 2001


BY ROGER EBERT


If there is to be a memorial, let it not be of stone and steel.
Fly no flag above it, for it is not the possession of a nation
but a sorrow shared with the world.


Let it be a green field, with trees and flowers. Let there be
paths that wind through the shade. Put out park benches
where old people can sun in the summertime, and a pond
where children can skate in the winter.


Beneath this field will lie entombed forever some of the
victims of September 11. It is not where they thought to end
their lives. Like the sailors of the battleship Arizona, they
rest where they fell.


Let this field stretch from one end of the destruction to the
other. Let this open space among the towers mark the
emptiness in our hearts. But do not make it a sad place.
Give it no name. Let people think of it as the green field.
Every living thing that is planted there will show faith in the
future.


Let students take a corner of the field and plant a crop
there. Perhaps corn, our native grain. Let the harvest be
shared all over the world, with friends and enemies, because
that is the teaching of our religions, and we must show that
we practice them. Let the harvest show that life prevails
over death, and let the gifts show that we love our
neighbors.


Do not build again on this place. No building can stand
there. No building, no statue, no column, no arch, no
symbol, no name, no date, no statement. Just the comfort of
the earth we share, to remind us that we share it.


Copyright © Chicago Sun-Times Inc.


September 14, 2001

[TheRogue]

Amen......