A Few Words About 9/11
Head of School Helen Stevens Chinitz's address to The Storm King School and visiting schools on September 11th:
"Thank you for joining us here at The Storm King School on a day of sports competition and fun, but during which we must take a serious pause to consider the terrifying and sad events of 2001.
We are here to memorialize those who, innocent, lost their lives to a terrorist act.
We are here to honor those Christians, Jews, Muslims, Hindus, and Confucians who gave of themselves to help others on that day. And we are here especially to honor those heroes, male and female, in the fire departments and on the police forces who gave of their lives for others, or who risked their lives and are still living with those hours and days.
It was a stunning and terrifying day for all in the country: that a few could do so much damage to life and spirit.
What we hope in the years going forward is that together we condemn such acts here and elsewhere that are so without soul under the heavens. That we not narrow our vision of each other and of our many dearly held beliefs, the religious and the ethical; that we not narrow our views of each other but rather learn to discover mutual respect, and generous modes of being, so that living near each other we can come to enjoy each other, and laugh as our children play with each other.
A serious day this is with much to slow us down in our thinking, much that requires we reach out to each other.
Thank you."