This morning as I sit and drink my hot chocolate, I watch the sun come up pink on the buildings of a new day – and a city that never sleeps.  What a time for Inspirational music!  If the Missus weren’t still sleeping, I’d go into my studio, throw open the windows and crank up the volume.

Perhaps a song called Faith, perhaps Who Will Heal The World, perhaps Julia’s Upon The Mountain.  I’d play my ‘hood, Hell’s Kitchen, awake and stand on my terrace overlooking Lower Manhattan, the Village, Wall Street and the Statue Of Liberty and holler, “Wake up, New York!  We’re alive!

Last night I looked out on a new building springing up down where the Twin Towers once stood.  It was lit majestically in red, white and blue.  It stands where once, not so long ago, there was nothing but a hole in the ground.  Hope re-kindled.

This morning the sun rises on the tenth anniversary of 9/11.

I wasn’t in NYC ten years ago this morning.  At first I counted it a blessing.  I was in my other home in Colorado sleeping with the Missus when the telephone rang to tell us of the unbelievable news.  We spent the rest of the day, just like the rest of you, glued to our TV and watching the images over and over in disbelief as they burned into our brains for all time.

We were safe, but somehow, that wasn’t enough.  We wanted to be here.  Our living room terrace and window opened up every day to us with those iconic, majestic towers.  They were part of our life.  And now they stood no longer.  Toppled by mad men Hell bent on destruction — horribly unsuccessful in their “success”.

We came back to NYC a month later to a hole in our life and a smell that still lingered – of burning metal and falling people.  The morning after we arrived, we walked down to the crash site still numb from the experience and became even more numb.

For the next ten years, as we looked out on these anniversaries, we would see only two giant shafts of light reaching into the heavens to remind us – as if we needed reminding.

This morning we seem to be threatened again.  I wake up to a day of remembrance, a day of hope, a day of new life, and yet, a day of warning.  I shall take my precautions, but I, like 8 million others of us will go on living in the face of terror because, as the song goes, “If you can make it here, you can make it anywhere”.  Whether that’s true or not, that captures the spirit of New York – the spirit of America.

Today I shall write and create music.  No matter where this day takes us, I shall do what I was put on this earth, in this fair city, to do.  Nothing will stop me from doing that.  No confused minds, destructive thought or sad misguided life motives can get in the way of that.  That is my protection from evil.  Simply to do good.

Goodness reigns over evil always and forever.  I will not let this thought go.  Even the people killed ten years ago this morning still live – in spirit, in their own spiritual reality, in our hearts and memory.  Evil, in its proudest moment stands as nothing but a distant memory this morning – shallow in its intent and failed in its purpose.

Its purpose was to weaken; it made us stronger.  Its purpose was to destroy; it made us create and build again.  Its purpose was to make us hate; this morning I feel nothing but love – love for the departed, love for the world.  Its purpose was to create fear; this morning I stand in my window and face the world knowing that God is the only control.  Goodness reigns.  Evil simply loses again and does only what it knows best to do – nothing.

Now the sun is up.  The city wakes.  Many head off to church.  Many take their own moments of inner peace with their God understandings and pause respectfully before heading out on their day.  A few don’t even know what today is.  They missed it in the rush of life.

I wouldn’t miss this for the world.  It’s a day of action, a day of living, a day of dominion over evil, a day of creativity and a day of remembrance.  Tomorrow we shall simply move into the second decade and go about our business.

I hold to the understanding that God is in control, evil is nothing and life is full, rich with blessings and eternal in its nature.  I am a being.

That’s ‘being’.  I am.  I live.  My life is.  The whole concept includes nothing but the idea of continuation – the continuation of goodness.

Have a great day!