You monster. You beast. You unspeakable bastard.

What lesson did you hope to teach us by your coward's attack on our
World Trade Center, our Pentagon, us? What was it you hoped we would
learn? Whatever it was, please know that you failed.

Did you want us to respect your cause? You just damned your cause.
Did you want to make us fear? You just steeled our resolve.
Did you want to tear us apart? You just brought us together.

Let me tell you about my people. We are a vast and quarrelsome family,
a family rent by racial, social, political and class division, but
a family nonetheless. We're frivolous, yes, capable of expending
tremendous emotional energy on pop cultural minutiae -- a singer's
revealing dress, a ball team's misfortune, a cartoon mouse. We're
wealthy, too, spoiled by the ready availability of trinkets and material
goods, and maybe because of that, we walk through life with a certain
sense of blithe entitlement.

We are fundamentally decent, though -- peace-loving and compassionate.

We struggle to know the right thing and to do it. And we are, the
overwhelming majority of us, people of faith, believers in a just
and loving God.

Some people -- you, perhaps -- think that any or all of this makes us
weak. You're mistaken. We are not weak. Indeed, we are strong in ways
that cannot be measured by arsenals.

IN PAIN
Yes, we're in pain now. We are in mourning and we are in shock.
We're still grappling with the unreality of the awful thing you did,
still working to make ourselves understand that this isn't a special
effect from some Hollywood blockbuster; isn't the plot development from
a Tom Clancy novel. Both in terms of the awful scope of their ambition
and the probable final death toll, your attacks are likely to go down
as the worst acts of terrorism in the history of the United States and,
probably, the history of the world. You've bloodied us as we have never
been bloodied before.

But there's a gulf of difference between making us bloody and making
us fall. This is the lesson Japan was taught to its bitter sorrow the
last time anyone hit us this hard, the last time anyone brought us
such abrupt and monumental pain. When roused, we are righteous in
our outrage, terrible in our force. When provoked by this level of
barbarism, we will bear any suffering, pay any cost, go to any length,
in the pursuit of justice.

I tell you this without fear of contradiction. I know my people, as
you, I think, do not. What I know reassures me. It also causes me
to tremble with dread of the future.

In the days to come, there will be recrimination and accusation,
fingers pointing to determine whose failure allowed this to happen
and what can be done to prevent it from happening again. There will
be heightened security, misguided talk of revoking basic freedoms.
We'll go forward from this moment sobered, chastened, sad.
But determined, too. Unimaginably determined.

THE STEEL IN US
You see, the steel in us is not always readily apparent. That aspect
of our character is seldom understood by people who don't know us well.
On this day, the family's bickering is put on hold.

As Americans we will weep, as Americans we will mourn, and as
Americans, we will rise in defense of all that we cherish.

So I ask again: What was it you hoped to teach us? It occurs to me
that maybe you just wanted us to know the depths of your hatred.
If that's the case, consider the message received. And take this
message in exchange: You don't know my people. You don't know what
we're capable of. You don't know what you just started.

Four thousand gathered for mid-day prayer in a downtown cathedral. A NewYork City church, filled and emptied six times last Tuesday. The owner of a Manhattan tennis shoe store threw open his doors and gave running shoes to those fleeing the towers. People stood in lines to give blood, in hospitals to treat the sick, in sanctuaries to pray for the
wounded.

America was different this week. We wept for people we did not know.

We sent money to families we've never seen. Talk show hosts read Scriptures, journalists printed prayers. Our focus shifted from fashion hemlines and box scores to orphans and widows and the future of the world.

We were different this week. Republicans stood next to Democrats. Catholics prayed with Jews. Skin color was covered by the ash of burning towers. This is a different country than it was a week ago.

We're not as self-centered as we were. We're not as self-reliant as we were. Hands are out. Knees are bent. This is not normal. And I have to ask the question, "Do we want to go back to normal?"

Are we being given a glimpse of a new way of life? Are we, as a nation, being reminded that the enemy is not each other and the power is not in ourselves and the future is not in our bank accounts?

Could this unselfish prayerfulness be the way God intended for us to live all along? Maybe this, in his eyes, is the way we are called to live.

And perhaps the best response to this tragedy is to refuse to go back to normal.

Perhaps the best response is to follow the example of Tom Burnet. He was a passenger of flight 93. Minutes before the plane crashed in the fields of Pennsylvania he reached is wife by cell phone. "We're all going to
die," he told her, "but there are three of us who are going to do something about it."

We can do something about it as well. We can resolve to care more. We can resolve to pray more. And we can resolve that, God being our
helper, we'll never go back to normal again.