Sing unto the L-rd a new song.

We can't sing the same songs as before, because _we_ are not the same as before. We have been forever, irrevocably changed. We as a nation have lost some degree of innocence. We as a city have lost a physical piece of the city. And we as individuals have lost thousands of individuals, each of whom had a story that ended abruptly, too soon.

We walk numbly through the streets, in shock and sorrow. We grieve, we mourn, we feel the most utter devastation and it seems unbearable. Yet we bear it, somehow, and we keep walking, keep moving, keep going. Our hearts are heavy, laden with the burden of living when so many have died. We weep, we stare blankly at television screens, we hear the continuous non-stop coverage of this most horrific horror, we are surrounded by the images of terror and its aftermath.

We cannot sing the same songs we used to sing, because we are not the same people we used to be.

But we can sing a new song. We can take this unbearable pain that we bear, and we can transform it into something beautiful and sacred, a new song. It will be a song of suffering and darkness, but it can lead us to comfort and light. We must honor the memories of those who were killed in the attacks, and those who took their own lives with their own hands to prevent the deaths of other innocents. But we do not honor our dead by dying ourselves. We must mourn and grieve, but we must then cease mourning, set aside our grief. We can only honor the memories of those we have lost by living our lives as a tribute to them, by striving ever harder toward peace, for ourselves and our world, in our own time. We honor the victims by working always for justice, for freedom, for peace. We must sing a new song, a song which they inspired, and their inspiration can comfort us. We must let our voices rise up as one united chorus. We can draw strength from each other. We must allow ourselves to live. We cannot weep and sing simultaneously. We must choose life, choose to sing a new song, a song of hope and courage borne of despair and tragedy. We can sing a new song, blending our voices into the fabric of hope, the triumph of humanity over inhumanity. We must sing a new song.