Ein Feste Burg

The first listener-request selection of the morning on what was then PRM (Public Radio in Mississippi) on Friday 9/14/01 was an organ solo of "A Mighty Fortress." This song for me will always be associated with September 11th as a response and a declaration of faith.

9/11/01 was words. That morning on NPR a radio essay critiqued George W. Bush's lingual blunders. The contrast between the flaming earnestness in the predawn and the silence of the skies within hours becomes a test of language: if what is said is irrelevant in times of crisis, it is of questionable value in times of order.

The more precious we find language and the other, the less we will waste words and waste others with them.