<html><div style='background-color:'><P>I had a brief note ready to post yesterday, for in a few hours I leave home, first by car to a meeting in Canada and then by plane to Paris and onward to Urdos and the pilgrimage. Yesterday morning, a gloriously beautiful early autumn morning, we awoke to news of the first Trade Center plane crash and fire. Just as we turned on the television, the second tower was hit. Some minutes later we heard of the crash at the Pentagon, a site most familiar to us as we had lived for many years in Washington, DC and still have friends and family in the area, some of them living very close to the Pentagon. We are fortunate to not have been harmed ourselves, to have no family members or close friends harmed, at least physically, and to be able to continue life in a somewhat normal way. At the same time, we are having a most difficult time comprehending the horror, the pain, the carnage, an!
d the ways in which the lives of all Americans will change, beginning immediately.</P>
<P>It is an odd juxtaposition to be on my way to a religious pilgrimage when religious fanatacism has caused this unspeakable horror. Indeed, it gives pause, for I am areligious and love the camino more for what it tells me about our common culture than for any religious reason. Like all symbols of religion, Santiago has more than its share of associations with religious fanatacism. Only think of the name "Santiago Matamoros," killer of moors (Muslims). On an old map in my collection, near the camino and Burgos, there is even a town with "Matajudios" in its name. I cannot find the town on a current map, and I hope the name has been erased and replaced with one less hostile.</P>
<P>This camino, my second all the way to Santiago, will be a much more somber one than my first in 1998. Thoughts on some of those dusty hours of solitary walking must be directed to how the evils of relgious fanatacism, in all of its forms, Christian, Islamic, Jewish, Hindu, etc., can be removed from the world. How can we be tolerant and promote toleration in an increasingly crowded world where any act of intolerance can cause vast carnage?</P>
<P>Meanwhile, my thoughts, sympathies, and condolences, and those of all people who try to be humane, are with those who are victims of events so horrible we can not even hope to comprehend them.</P>
<P>E. O. Pederson</P>
<P>Seattle, WA</P></div><br clear=all><hr>Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at <a href='http://go.msn.com/bql/hmtag_itl_EN.asp'>http://explorer.msn.com</a><br></html>