Flight 93 Memorial 15K

They called it "9.3 for Flight 93", the flight that went down in the fields of Pennsylvania on September 11, 2001. I ran it on November 13, 2005, this past Sunday.

A stark, grey day. A small field of runners. An awe-filling and challenging course up and down the hills of Pennsylvania to the Memorial for Flight 93 and back to the Shanksville-Stonycreek High School where the run began.

Every year since 2001, this run has been held here to honor and mourn those lost in these high remote fields. To honor, too, their sisters, brothers, mothers, fathers, and friends who were lost in Arlington and New York to the hatred and obsession of terrorism on that same day. As I climbed the hill to overlook the "temporary" Memorial that I believe will remain as long as Americans live on this land, my mind filled with an image of forever stretching forward and backward from the point at which I stood. This landscape knows. This landscape has always known, and always will. And although I will never understand, now I know, as well.

It was a bleak and beautiful run. I shed not a tear, although my eyes filled time and again through this journey. And nothing will ever fill my heart more.

May we have peace. May we learn to tolerate and to live in our world together, without rancor and revenge and madness tearing us apart. May we at last, heal.