Words of comfort, rage, peace

[JeffB]

Today’s events have aroused many emotions in me, some in conflict with others: sadness, anger, despair, hope, resolve. Being at a loss for words, I turn to those of others. These quotes may not make sense when taken together, but then again neither do my feelings today. Each quote expresses a different feeling or has been something that I have found comforting at some point in the past.

I wasn’t sure whether or not to post this since it was more for me than for anyone else. The mere act of getting these all down was helpful, and if anyone gets anything from them, that’s wonderful. Feel free to add anything that you find comforting or expresses your feelings.

Oh God, bring peacefulness among us, bring unity into our hearts; guide us to equilibrium, take us from darkness to light and away from ugliness; bless our ears, our hearts, and our families; accept our repentance. (hadith, words of Mohammad)

Lord make me an instrument of Your peace. Where there is hatred … let me sow love. Where there is injury … pardon. Where there is doubt … faith. Where there is despair … hope. Where there is darkness … light. Where there is sadness … joy.

O, Divine Master, grant that I may not so much seek to be consoled as to console. To be understood as to understand. To be loved as to love. For it is in giving that we receive. It is in pardoning that we are pardoned. It is in dying that we are born in to eternal life. (St. Francis of Assisi, Peace Prayer)

Never shall I forget that night, the first night in camp, which has turned my life into one long night, seven times cursed and seven times sealed. Never shall I forget that smoke. Never shall I forget the little faces of the children, whose bodies I saw turned into wreaths of smoke beneath a silent blue sky.

Never shall I forget those flames which consumed my faith forever.

Never shall I forget that nocturnal silence which deprived me, for all eternity, of the desire to live. Never shall I forget those moments which murdered my God and my soul and turned my dreams to dust. Never shall I forget these things, even if I am condemned to live as long as God Himself. Never. (Elie Wiesel, Night)

Because I could not stop for Death,
He kindly stopped for me;
The carriage held but just ourselves
And Immortality.

We slowly drove, he knew no haste,
And I had put away
My labour, and my leisure too,
For his civility.

We passed the school where children played,
Their lessons scarcely done;
We passed the fields of gazing grain,
We passed the setting sun.

We paused before a house that seemed
A swelling of the ground;
The roof was scarcely visible,
The cornice but a mound.

Since then ‘tis centuries; but each
Feels shorter than the day
I first surmised the horses’ heads
Were toward eternity.
(Emily Dickinson)

When you are joyous, look deep into your heart and you shall find it is only that which has given you sorrow that is giving you joy.

When you are sorrowful look again in your heart, and you shall see that in truth you are weeping for that which has been your delight.

Some of you say, “Joy is greater than sorrow,” and others say, “Nay, sorrow is the greater.”

But I say unto you, they are inseparable.

Together they come, and when one sits alone with you at your board, remember that the other is asleep upon your bed.
(Kahlil Gibran, The Prophet)

God is our refuge and our strength, an ever-present help in distress. Thus we do not fear, though earth be shaken and mountains quake to the depths of the sea, though its waters rage and foam and mountains totter at its surging. (Psalm 46:2-4)

Arous’d and angry, I’d thought to beat the alarum, and urge relentless war,
But soon my fingers fail’d me, my face droop’d and I resign’d myself,
To sit by the wounded and soothe them, or silently watch the dead.
(Walt Whitman, “The Wound Dresser”)

[Gala_Matrix_Fire]

“Do we not destroy our enemy by making him our friend?” --Abraham Lincoln

[wolfman]

The quote that has been going through my mind all day is a lot more vengeful.

You wanna get Capone? Here’s how you get him. He pulls a knife, you pull a gun. He sends one of yours to the hospital, you send one of his to the morgue. That’s the Chicago way. And that’s how you get Capone!

[Nocturne]

All day, the beginning of “Sunday Bloody Sunday” has been in my head.

“I can’t believe the news today
Oh, I can’t close my eyes
And make it go away
How long…
How long must we sing this song?”

[dentarthurdent]

Doctor, my eyes have seen the years
And the slow parade of fears without crying
Now I want to understand

I have done all that I could
To see the evil and the good without hiding
You must help me if you can

Doctor, my eyes
Tell me what is wrong
Was I unwise to leave them open for so long?

-Jackson Browne Doctor My Eyes

The images I have seen today will be forever etched in my mind. I am not ashamed to say that I cried for all of us today.

[Michael_Ellis]

Heaven help you, because almost no one else will.

On second thought, I’m not sure Heaven will help you either.

[red_dragon60]

nothing stays gold.

-Robert Frost

To live is to suffer

Buddhist Proverb

I am crying. I love these quotes. JeffB, thank you.

Doug

[red_dragon60]

And the battle’s just begun
There’s many lost, but tell me who has won
The trench is dug within our hearts
And mothers, children, brothers, sisters
Torn apart

-U2, Sunday Bloody Sunday

[Daowajan]

I can’t believe the news today
Oh, I can’t close my eyes
And make it go away
How long…
How long must we sing this song?
How long? How long…
'cause tonight…we can be as one
Tonight…
Broken bottles under children’s feet
Bodies strewn across the dead end street
But I won’t heed the battle call
It puts my back up
Puts my back up against the wall
Sunday, Bloody Sunday
Sunday, Bloody Sunday
Sunday, Bloody Sunday
And the battle’s just begun
There’s many lost, but tell me who has won
The trench is dug within our hearts
And mothers, children, brothers, sisters
Torn apart
Sunday, Bloody Sunday
Sunday, Bloody Sunday
How long…
How long must we sing this song?
How long? How long…
'cause tonight…we can be as one
Tonight…tonight…
Sunday, Bloody Sunday
Sunday, Bloody Sunday
Wipe the tears from your eyes
Wipe your tears away
Oh, wipe your tears away
Oh, wipe your tears away
(Sunday, Bloody Sunday)
Oh, wipe your blood shot eyes
(Sunday, Bloody Sunday)
Sunday, Bloody Sunday (Sunday, Bloody Sunday)
Sunday, Bloody Sunday (Sunday, Bloody Sunday)
And it’s true we are immune
When fact is fiction and TV reality
And today the millions cry
We eat and drink while tomorrow they die
(Sunday, Bloody Sunday)
The real battle just begun
To claim the victory Jesus won
On…
Sunday Bloody Sunday
Sunday Bloody Sunday…

[CrankyAsAnOldMan]

“I will permit no man to narrow and degrade my soul by making me hate him.”

—Booker T. Washington

Actually, I am not ready for this quote yet. I do feel a lot of hate just now.

I was at a vigil earlier tonight, and heard some good stuff there. One speaker talked about the natural reactions to tragedy, including anger. He said anger was normal and even helpful, but cautioned us “Do not let anger rule you in the days ahead.”

[tisiphone]

“All rights and all wrongs have long since blown away,
For causes are ashes where children lie slain.
Yet the damned U.D.I and the cruel I.R.A.
Will tomorrow go murdering again.
But no penny of mine will I add to the fray.
“Remember the Boyne!” they will cry out in vain,
For I’ve given my heart to the place I was born
And forgiven the whole House of Orange
King Billy and the whole House of Orange.”

Stan Rogers, “The House of Orange”

[Zaphod_Beeblebrox]

I am saddened. I am sickened. I am speechless. I’m not even American, and I am in complete shock.

My thoughts go out to all the people who’ve lost loved ones, all the people who were hurt or killed, and all the people who fear they might have lost loved ones.

I’m sorry, I can’t say anything more meaningful or coherent than that.

[Rasa]

Walt Whitman and Gibran. Good words, man.

[ExTank]

To the perpetrators:

*You better make your face up with your favorite disguise;
with your button down lips and roller blind eyes;
with your empty smile and your hungry heart;
feel the bile rising from your guilty past;
with your nerves in tatters as the cockleshell shatters;
and the hammer’s beaten down you door

you better run!

Run, Run, Run, Run!
Run, Run, Run, Run!
Run, Run, Run, Run!

You’d better sleep all day, and run all night;
and keep your dirty feeling deep inside;
and if you’re taking your girlfriend out tonight,
you’d better park your car well out of sight,
because if we catch you in the backseat
trying to pick her locks,
we’re going to send you home to mother
in a cardboard box!

you better run!*

For my fellow Americans:

*Gonna take you down; deep down to the front line.

Woke up this morning, got yourself a gun;
your momma always said you’d be the
chosen one;
she said that: you’re one-in-a-million, you got to
learn to shine. But you were
born under a bad sign with a blue moon in your eyes.

Woke up this morning and all that love had gone;
your poppa never told you about
right-and-wrong;
but you’re looking good baby, I believe that
your a-feelin’ fine. Shame about it:
born under a bad sign with a blue moon in your eyes.

So sing it now:

(Woke Up This Morning!)
Got a blue moon,
(Got A Blue Moon In Your Eyes!)
So sad; Goddamned! A goddamned
shame about it.
(Woke Up This Morning!)
Got a blue moon,
(Got A Blue Moon In Your Eyes!)
(WOKE UP THIS MORNING!)

So ya:

Woke up this morning,
the world turned upside down;
lordy brother, things ain’t been the same
since the blues walked into town.
But ya one-in-a-million, cause you got that
shotgun shine.
Shame about it: born under a bad sign
with a blue moon in your eyes.

(Woke Up This Morning!)
Got a blue moon,
(Got A Blue Moon In Your Eyes!)
So sad; Goddamned! A goddamned
shame about it.
(Woke Up This Morning!)
Got a blue moon,
(Got A Blue Moon In Your Eyes!)
(WOKE UP THIS MORNING!)
Yeah I know it: you just can’t help yourself!
Just can’t help yourself;
just can’t help yourself.

When you woke up this morning everything was gone,
‘bout half past ten your head was going ding-dong,
ringing like a bell from your head down to your toes,
just like a voice tryin’ to tell you there was something you should know,
last night you were flying but today you’re so low,
ain’t it times like these makes you wonder if you’ll ever know
the meaning of things as they appear to the others;
your wives, mothers, fathers, sisters and brothers,
don’t you wish you didn’t function, don’t you wish you didn’t think
beyond the next paycheck and the next little drink?
Well you do, so make up your mind to go on,
‘cos when you woke up this morning everything you had was gone.

(Woke Up This Morning!)
(Woke Up This Morning!)
(Woke Up This Morning!)
You wanna be, you wanna be the chosen one;
yeah you know it, you just can’t help yourself.
(Woke Up This Morning!)
(Woke Up This Morning!)
(Woke Up This Morning!)

(Got Yourself A Gun!)
(WOKE UP THIS MORNING!)
(Got Yourself A Gun!)
(Got Yourself A Gun!)

[Maeglin]

Thanks, ExTank. I put on a live version of Run Like Hell and actually smiled today. Hearing the sheer malevolence in Roger Waters’ voice was…cathartic.

It always helps to know that others have suffered the same things long ago. I made a little time for Vergil today.

O Queen, you order me to revisit the unspeakable suffering, when the Greeks destroyed the riches and the kingdom of Troy, which most wretched deeds I myself saw, and of which I was a large part. Who of the Myrmidons or the Dolopa or the hardened veterans of Ulysses can keep himself from weeping when recounting such things?

But if it is your pleasure to know our fall, to hear briefly the final disaster of Troy, although my mind recoils to remember it and flees from the pain, I shall begin to tell the tale.

Three thousand years. Same story.

I don’t think I am ever going to read The Aeneid the same way again.

[Drain_Bead]

The Second Coming

Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.

Surely some revelation is at hand;
Surely the Second Coming is at hand.
The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out
When a vast image out of Spiritus Mundi
Troubles my sight: somewhere in sands of the desert
A shape with lion body and the head of a man,
A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun,
Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it
Reel shadows of the indignant desert birds.
The darkness drops again; but now I know
That twenty centuries of stony sleep
Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle
And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,
Slouches toward Bethlehem to be born?

–William Butler Yeats, 1921

[ITR_champion]

“What kind of a people do they think we are? Is it possible they do not realize that we will never cease to persevere against them until they have been taught a lesson which they and the world will never forget?”

• Winston Churchill

“To err is human, to forgive, divine.”

• Alexander Pope

[Verrain]

A friend of mine wrote this. THought I would share.

A Tribute to those who Died in the Terrorist Attack on the US

The day was bright and sunny, and nary a care in the world.
But that would change before the day had even really begun.
Too many souls ripped from our land,
Too many loved ones gone in a blink of an eye.
Into God’s keeping they went without the chance to even say
farewell.
The scenes of this day will haunt our minds
For years and years yet to come.
We thought that we’d seen the worse, in the wars we’ve fought
In the loss of men like JFK
But this tragedy will live on beyond that
And act of senseless pain.
Innocence stripped from our childrens eyes
Will they ever feel safe again.
Will we?
I don’t know how to make sense of the senseless.
I don’t know what to think.
Such violence and destruction beyond belief
And so many lives lost to us.
I hope that in Heaven they are all looking down
Watching over us all.
On the brink of war, we stand and frown
We will need those guardian angels now.

By Felicia Olson

[Humble_Servant]

I read the news today, oh boy. 10,000 people turned away. But I just had to look…

A vast nation, forever peaceful.

Slow to anger, swift to justice.

The heart cold with horrors…

Please forgive this post, which is for me, to ease my heart, and which cannot aid anyone else. I am inadequate, ineffectual. I want to act but I can do nothing, for now:

When I consider how my light is spent
E’re half my days, in this dark world and wide,
And that one Talent which is death to hide,
Lodg’d with me useless, though my Soul more bent
To serve therewith my Maker, and present
My true account, lest he returning chide,
Doth God exact day-labour, light deny’d,
I fondly ask; But patience to prevent
That murmur, soon replies, God doth not need
Either man’s work or his own gifts, who best
Bear his milde yoak, they serve him best, his State
Is Kingly. Thousands at his bidding speed
And post o’re Land and Ocean without rest:
They also serve who only stand and wait.

[Arden_Ranger]

[This was posted on the Dragon*Con mailing list this morning]

I was discussing donating blood with my 16 year old daughter…she disappeared…and returned with this.
Gone are the towers that spoke for the people
Wounded, the fortress that guarded our arms.
Daydreams of flying, all turned against us,
Turned against people who did them no harm.

White birds carried death to all of the people,
Slim silver lances, like knights of the sky.
Lost with the tower were no hardened soldiers,
The heroes and innocents together did die.

The fires they started will give out no parley,
No glory for heroes, only heartbreak and tears.
The dust of this evil blots out the pale sunshine,
The ashes of family give shape to our fears.

Blood for the people so cruelly wounded,
Blood for the people who’ve already died.
Given, it’s mercy, taken it’s vengeance,
O God, why the thousands for a crazy man’s pride?

MarikaWojciechowski 9/11/01