We were stunned into silence as Space Coast Symphony Orchestra performed Kenneth Fuch’s “Falling Man” in last night’s concert. Today it will be performed again. I urge you to attend this afternoon’s concert in Vero Beach. It will be an experience you’ll never forget.
The written narrative by Don Delillo was sung to Fuch’s amazing Grammy Award winning music by Baritone Thomas Potter, Director of UCF Opera. These lines spoke to me as I watched the videotapes from the actual scene again this morning. We are pulled in by the terror. We can’t NOT watch. Here’s a passage from this amazing work of art: “Every time she saw a videotape of the planes she moved a finger toward the power button o the remote. Then, she kept on watching. the second plane coming out of the ice blue sky, this was the footage that entered the body, that seemed to run beneath her skin, the fleeting spirit that carried lives and histories, theirs and hers, everyone’s, into some other distance out beyond the towers.”
We internalize it, don’t we. We remember where we were. I remember beginning a class in the computer lab at Kennedy High School in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. Students watched in horror. Students and faculty wept. We still do.
DeLillo writes: “It was not a street anymore but a world, a time and space of falling ash and near night. He was walking north through rubble and mud and there were people running past holding towels to their faces or jackets over their heads. They had handkerchiefs pressed to their mouths. They had shoes in their hands, a woman with a shoe in each hand, running past him. They ran and fell, some of them, confused and ungainly, with debris coming down around them, and there were people taking shelter under cars.:
As we relive the events, let us never forget and continue to pray for peace in our world, for love for humanity, for the victims and their families–actually, for all of us, for we are all victims, and we are all part of this work called “Falling Man.”
This concert performed today was postponed from last year, the 20th anniversary. I pray the audience will fill every seat at Community Church this afternoon. It will change lives.
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