(Note: This is my alter-ego speaking -- actually its me, WIT. Had a problem with the WITruth password, and rather than spend another month getting it worked out as the last time, I sign-up under another e-mail address. Sorry for the absence.  Been training in a new airplane and haven't had much time to come up for breath. Thought you might enjoy these thoughts concerning our national/global tragedy. Rich)

Dear Friends and Loved Ones,

I thought you folks might be interested in this.  It's what I did, instead of getting up to NY early for tomorrow's flight.  Anyway, Frank is a fellow United Pilot who is a dear friend of mind, one of my favorite Captains, and was a close friend of Captain Victor Sancini.  (2003 Note: I had also flown with Vic once or twice and even had he and his family stop by on the way back from the shore once. Guess I was blocking it at the time of this letter, as I didn’t realize I had flown with Vic, until my wife Sandy found his phone number in our book and reminded me of their visit years ago.)  He had just sent me a great quote from the Miami Herald, and I couldn't help responding.

Love Rich

Dear Frank,

Regarding our world being turned upside down, I thought the Miami Herald  article was outstanding. Your comments, as quoted in a number of recent newspaper articles, have been equally outstanding.

As for me, I have been, at times, torn between my old warrior default (reverting to form, if you will -- which seems to be less and less these days) and the heartfelt spiritual peace with which I have recently been graced.  Guess the last 30 years of spiritual study (and more likely recent practice) is starting to pay real world (I wonder?) dividends.

Not something I'm prepared to verbalize too much at this point Frank, other than to say I've had more moments of the new man's "Father, forgive them for what they do! than the old man's "Nuke 'em till they glow!" moments.  You know, "Forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us."  versus "an eye for an eye" (i.e. "Kill 'em all and let God sort 'em out. etc.) thoughts and feelings.

For those, who are still prone (of which I am one) to demand an "eye for an eye", than perhaps "Vengeance is mine, saith the Lord!" would serve as a "spiritual half-way house", between self-centered vengeance, and God-centered forgiveness.  Unfortunately, retribution and vengeance exacted from a personal or selfish perspective, is exactly what those "terribly mislead and misguided" souls thought they were inflicting on the USA.  Although I once believed wholeheartedly in "fire fights" (i.e. fighting fire with fire, and to hell with everything else, including myself, etc.), I'm beginning to feel in my heart (as we all believe, at least intellectually, in our heads) that taking the "moral and spiritual high ground" is the only position that can assure any ultimate victory, either individual or collective. (2003 Note: Perhaps,\ I’m coming around to the Quaker way of seeing things.  Re: a recent sign in response to the Iraq war – “There is no way to Peace.  Peace is the Way.”)

I might also suggest that Third-world cultures naturally tend to misunderstand our motives, and very often mistake kindness and mercy for weakness.  Not realizing that the only one who can truly afford to be merciful is one who is sufficiently powerful and secure to grant it.  While for those (countries, classes or people) who perceive themselves as having insufficient strength or power, their very existence seems constantly threatened. In such circumstances, real or imagined, survival motives demand that the law of the jungle replace the law of reason, and no quarter is ask or given.  To give in to an all too natural temptation to reply in kind, to react with further viciousness and mindless violence, however, leads only to a tightening of this "graveyard spiral" we and our world now seems to have entered.

Succumbing to road rage (which probably also arises from a similar growing sense of individual powerlessness and attendant anger) and ramming a car that cut us off, is of the same order, though of a different magnitude of insanity.  Mindless rage is still rage, whether justifiable or not.   In this regard, we all need to remember that to be "mad" emotionally is to be "mad" mentally, and to hold our peace accordingly.  There is a time that the piper will be paid, but we are held accountable to higher principles than the law of the jungle, and must be willing to allow the Lord to do the punishing (even if it is we who wield the sword of truth and justice when called, in good conscious and not rage, to do so).  Neither should we take any personal pleasure or satisfaction in being the administers of any such justice, any more than a mother would take pleasure in having to punish her child.

Over all, the one thought that is a recurring theme in more enlightened moments is:  "When your whole world becomes nonsense, the only thing left that makes sense is God".  Seen in this light, I truly believe that inconceivable tragedies, such as that which has now befallen our beloved nation, are more a call to knees then a call to arms. A "wake-up call" of the first order; a "comic two-by-four," if you will.  The question is, how will we as individuals and a nation respond?  Will we wake up, or continue in our proverbial "hand-basket trip to hell".

So do I pray that we all, individually and collectively, make this most basic of judgments -- whether to continue trying to change the world from the outside in, or finally "wake up", and start the arduous work of changing our hearts, and our world from the inside out -- righteously.  To assure that we do demands that each of us exercise individual knees, first, last and always, before flexing collective muscle.  For it is one thing to be the sword through which the Lord exacts payment for the spiritual debt that was incurred on Sept11th (and He will to the last farthing), and quite another to use that self-same "sword" to exact our own vengeance, be it as an individual, or as an nation.  For as we judge and act, so shall we be judged and acted upon, with or without mercy.  (Do we really want to continue sowing the seeds of ever more horrendous "whirlwinds?" and, ultimately, our own destruction? )

In Chinese, the character for crisis is also opportunity.  If so, I hope we as a country and as a global community avail ourselves of this one.

Your Brother in Christ,

Rich Hay

PS.  Interestingly enough, the "Kill em all" quote is really a modern -- airborne rangers, I believe -- variant that originated with a religious personage in the process of putting down a spiritual uprising among congregants in the middle ages.  A classic perversion of man's inner religious spirit turned outwardly to worldly ends, but a perversion not significantly different then terrorism in the name of God (is there any greater insanity?) that we experienced on September 11th.