Yesterday, I watched the entire prayer service from Yankee Stadium. I'll tell you what... that was a moving couple of hours. I cried a lot, and yet I reveled in the hope and resolve that these people have. It was a great service. There were clergy from eight different world religions. As I was watching them, I was struck by how alike all these religions were. The name of the deity was different, but the theme of love, understanding, eternal grace... those were the same. They were MUCH more alike than they were different. It's amazing that over the thousands of years that mankind has been forming various theologies, they end up being so universal in theme. This not only validates the existence of a higher power to my mind, it also gives me great hope that we can all get along. I'm becoming less judgmental than I used to be. As a gay person who grew up in a politically correct society, I have never had open hatred for other individuals, but I have had private, unspoken prejudice toward certain cultures and people. These have made me ashamed of myself, so I have hidden them. I have never spoke of them at all until now. I know that prejudice comes from a lack of understanding. I have friends of many colors and backgrounds, and I have liked each one for what they have taught me, but I remained biased of their color or background in general. Instead of these attacks reinforcing or building my prejudices, they instead crumbled and blew away, like the dust in those towers. I don’t know why, other than the fact that I’m grown up now and can reform my own opinions, or perhaps because in the face of such terror and sorrow, I have realized that life is too short to hate. There has been talk of the good that has come in the face of such horror. We can hope and pray that the unity this nation feels continues for a long time. The ultimate victory in the War Against Terrorism will be the total tolerance in our society.