On the plains of Jordan, I cut my bow from the wood of this tree of evil, this tree of good

If you're not familiar with "Empty Sky" by Bruce Springsteen, you should be.  As time has gone by, it has become my favorite song from The Rising, Springsteen's musical response to the events of 9/11.  This is a stripped down, acoustic version of it that might just be better than the full band version on the album...

I think this sums up how I feel about the events that everybody's been talking about for the past few days.  I just feel...empty.  I have no energy, or desire, to celebrate; I lack the passion to be bold and prophetic in the face of some of my fellow citizens' shameful displays since Sunday night.  Nearly a decade of hunting down the person who, more than any other human in my lifetime, has been the face of evil, and his death means...nothing.  We've said, for coming on ten years, that what we want is an eye for an eye, and when we get it, we find that it won't put those towers back in the sky, or bring back the thousands of people (business people, soldiers, innocent civilians in Iraq and Afghanistan) whose deaths we've mourned.


I wish we'd all just shut up about it.  For once, we could stop the jingoistic facebook posts and sanctimonious tweets, and just pray.  That's what I'm going to do today...just live with the emptiness and pain and mouth "Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner."