I watched the 9/11 documentary that CBS showed a few months ago tonight. I was amazed by how much the french brothers captured. The worse part of the film was heaing the noise of the bodies falling. It's not a sound I will ever forget, and I wasn't even there. How bad must it have been for those people for them to throw themselves out of the building like that?

It's weird for me to think of the World Trade Centers gone. When I was spending much time with friends in NYC in the late 80's, I remember going to the World Trade Center one summer for a concert. My friends told me they had a lot concerts in the courtyard of the World Trade Center in the summer time.

One nice summer day, we took the train to the World Trade Center, got out and heard some kind of jazz concert there. The towers were amazing to me; they were so tall. There were so many people sitting and eating their lunch, and milling about. I couldn't believe all those people worked in those two very tall buildings. We didn't have time to go to the top, but I checked out all the shops at the bottom and even bought a denim jacket from one of the shops. I don't have that jacket anymore, but I wore it for several years. I wish I still had that jacket now as a souvenir of the World Trade Center.

I'm glad I have at least one physical memory of the World Trade Center, so the loss of it is something I can relate to. I can't imagine the towerds not being there. All my memories of the Manhattan skyline have the World Trade Center in it.

I also watched part of the Frontline documentary on Faith and God after 9/11, since I forgot to watch it last week. I also taped it for future viewing. That documentary was sort of depressing to watch. I'll have to watch it later, after I'm out of this 9/11 daze. One thing stands out for me just in the hour that I did manage to catch--how could god have allowed 9/11.

I don't know the answer to this question. I mean, if you ask that question, then you have to ask how could god have let 6 million jews die in the Holocaust, how could have god let people die in the Black Plague, how could could god let all those russians die in World War II, how could god have let Pearl Harbor happen, how could god let cancer eat up the body of a child who is under the age of 10, etc.

In my long spiritual journey, a journey I have been on since the age of 12, I have come to accept that the ways of God are inscrutable.

inscrutable
\In*scru"ta*ble\, a. [L. inscrutabilis : cf. F. inscrutable. See In- not, and Scrutiny.] Unsearchable; incapable of being searched into and understood by inquiry or study; impossible or difficult to be explained or accounted for satisfactorily; obscure; incomprehensible; as, an inscrutable design or event.

How can I as a human being with my human mind understand the ways of god? My life is just a blip, a second in the infinity of time. I'm not sure how or where I got this understanding from, but I hear the words of my friend B. Scavullo saying it to me over and over again. He was convinced of this, and often told me that it was foolish to ask why god did or did not do anything. He said that all you can really do is try to discern god's for your life. He said that all you can really do is surrender yourself to god's will and to trust him with your life. I used to smile at him and think, easy to sayand so very hard to do.

I've never been through anything like what those people in NYC, DC and Pennsylvania went through. I don't know what my state of mind would be right now, if I did. I don't think anyone can imagine what they would do in those circumstances, unless they actually went through it themselves. I would like to think that I would have come out of it with my faith intact, but I won't know until I get tested.

It's easy for me to say that the ways of god are inscrutable, but I never had body parts raining down on me like some of those firefighters did. I didn't see or hear in person people falling from a 110 story building, because what they were facing was too horrible and they thought jumping to death below was a better option. I've never had a building collapse on top of me. I've never had 30 people I know all die all at the same time, nor did I have to go to a funeral every day for a month or two. I've never been a part of any major disaster, and saw or knew that many people that died during it.

It's not that my faith has never been tested, because it certainly has and definitely more than once. But I've never had my faith tested like those people who went through 9/11. That Frontline documentary was definitely disturbing, and something I think I'll wonder about for a very long time.