Looking to the future knowing one cannot forget the past...

It is already nine years and yet it seems like only yesterday. We all remember where we were, what we were doing when the news of the terrorist attack on the World Trade Centre in New York City rocked the world.

Its legacy was two-fold: a coming together of people all over the world, particularly across the United States, a standing together, hand in hand, in the darkness of the tremendous horror and loss that unfolded - a catastrophe that no one believed could ever be possible. If you have stood at Ground Zero as I have done, as millions have done before and since, you would also have felt the emptiness there, the disbelief, the grief and the outrage.

We have been witness to the tears, the bravery and the heroism, hundreds of incredible stories of humanity and selflessness.

But 9/11 has also left a legacy of deep distrust and suspicion. It has bred intolerance and in many cases, racial hatred, simply through the sheer determination that such tragedy should never again be witnessed on American soil. Our ability to remember with peace and love this year has been tainted particularly by the recent controversies of the Park51 project and Terry Jones' threats to burn the Qoran which resulted in riots and retaliation across the world.... If we make space for hatred, we are allowing terrorism to take the upper hand. 

That terrible morning is relived again and again by so many - the images still fresh, the pain still acute and the loss still raw... memories, experiences, the scars that linger and will do so for years to come.

``If we learn nothing else from this tragedy, we learn that life is short and there is no time for hate,'' said Sandy Dahl, the wife of Flight 93 pilot Jason Dahl.

THIS wonderfully moving memorial on-line is dedicated to all the men, women and children who lost their lives, the brave who gave their lives and the heroes who responded to the emergency call on 9th September 2001.

"Let us, you and me, pray for peace and let us make our hearts fit to accept it when it comes. Let us make our intellect, and our soul, and our will and our feeling ready to receive it and embrace it even before it comes. Let us in the stillness of our own soul go back to that ineffable Presence which is Peace and proclaim It even in the midst of confusion - that peace which is the power at the heart of God." Ernest Holmes