Ten years ago yesterday...

Rob and I were driving to Laity Lodge in the Hill Country 

for me to do the music for a retreat there.

We stopped in Ballinger for lunch, and I remember eating our burgers while 
the TV in the corner spilled out the visual and audio evidence of the 
"shock and awe"the U.S. was perpetrating upon the people of Iraq, 
in an effort to spare our country and the world from the dreaded 
WMD's  that were supposedly lurking somewhere out there.

As we ate and watched, I had the sense that there was something terribly 
wrong about having our lunch with WAR; and yet we continued to do just that, 

along with all the folks at the other tables, eating, drinking, and glancing up occasionally at the TV screen to see what new targets were being hit.

Why, it was a real live video game playing out
before our very eyes,
while we ate!

I remember knowing in my heart of hearts that what was going on

on that screen was wrong...that somehow, one day it would be revealed that 
this was all a huge mistake...a rush to war without sufficient rationale.

Throughout the retreat time, during breaks between sessions, we'd 
check in to pick up what news we could, although Laity is famous, 
thank goodness, for being a media-less oasis in a media-crazed world; 
so what we picked up was bits and pieces from folks who had been 
to town or managed to tune in to news stations on their radios.

How ironic that we spent that weekend  
in retreat
while our country was 
on the attack.

As we now know, 
our lunch with WAR became WAR for ten years,
three meals-a-day, played out through 
countless news stories and body counts,
revolutions and revelations, 
strategies and tragedies.

I knew it was wrong. We knew it was wrong. They knew it was wrong.

It happened anyway!

"When will we ever learn?
When will we ever learn?"