Today, September 11, we remember the tragedy that occurred at the World Trade Center & the Pentagon, eleven years ago. Nearly three thousand people were killed during the attacks, but countless lives were altered by loss, sorrow, and fear.

Our nation, and we as citizens, will be forever changed by what took place. But together we have united even more fully as a country. Today should not be a day of despair, but a day of hope.

It was Adlai Stevenson, in The Nature of Patriotism, who said: “When an American says that he loves his country, he means not only that he loves the New England hills, the prairies glistening in the sun, the wide and rising plains, the great mountains, and the sea.  He means that he loves an inner air, an inner light in which freedom lives…”

We are all a part of the fabric of that America. We make this country what it is. It is our responsibility as citizens to go out into the world in harmony and good will, because America is our home.

Oh, it’s home again and home again, America for me!
I want a ship that’s westward bound to plough the rolling sea
To the blessed land of Room Enough beyond the ocean bars,
Where the air is full of sunlight and the flag is full of stars.
~Henry Van Dyke