I just got home about an hour ago from meetings and I checked online and saw the news about Bin Laden, so I turned the tv on and caught Wolf and the CNN team covering the celebrations from New York City to Washington.

I was in my daughter's room on 9-11. She was off to school for some time but we still called it her room. I was on my knees. I had been praying for a little while, had no idea that the day was going to be any different than any other day. Debbie nearly flew into the room that morning with that look on her face that I have only seen once before, when my father died and she had to tell me.

She had a look on her face as if she were staring into the eye of a monster and she was past fear, but into another dimension of horror. She told me to come watch the tv. I did and the first tower had already been hit, then a short while after, the second tower. That morning, tore a hole in so many hearts and tortured our American psyche. I could not take my eyes off of the tv for hours that day. It was a sadistic and bloodthirsty day seared in so many of our minds.

Now that Bin Laden is dead, I'm watching celebrations in NYC and Washington. I would not try for one instant to try to stop someone from acting in celebration or some other form of grieving or relief. I'm not prepared to judge anyone and their expression of their feelings. I grew up with the view of the Towers burned into my mind day after day as I walked or drove to school and lived close enough to feel the shadow of those buildings during most of my teenage years. I grew up with a fascination and curiosity for New York City, a kind of ground Zero in in itself, long before 9-11. So much life takes place in that city, that I naturally disagree with anyone who speaks poorly of it.

And yet I cannot celebrate myself. I cannot celebrate anyone's death. I can say that justice or rightness may be served. I can say that if Bin Laden were put on trial that he certainly should have been put to death. But I still cannot celebrate it. If you want to celebrate it, that is your free right. And I would fight for you to have that right.

But I think of my Lord. And as much as I struggle to describe it, I think He is saddened by the divide that separates so many of us. How does a man like Bin Laden gain so much power and gain such a following? How does an idea that he championed, that America is the Great Evil, get so much power?

I love this country, and have lived my life in such a way that I should not have to prove that. It is a great country indeed. And even if you find fault with it as many do, we do not need to diminish it's greatness. But I believe we can be greater still. That maybe the American Dream is even richer and more virtuous than we have often thought of. Americans want freedom for all people if we want anything for anyone. We want people to have the kind of freedoms we want. We want people to have enough freedom to make a mess of it and then recover from that mess and learn how to embrace it, then using it to enrich the world with that freedom and its fruits.

I find the South African experience of Mandela inspiring. And much of Martin Luther King as well. Somehow these two men were able to celebrate the ideals of freedom. They were instruments of freedom. Neither was flawless, but they both learned to fight evil with love. Love and forgiveness leaked out of them like blood from a wound that would drain them.

There are many years of military service in my family, some of it quite distinguished, even heroic. I love the commitment we have to keep a strong military presence in many parts of the world. My hope is that we would continue to find ways to set people free by living free ourselves, that we could give the gift of freedom away, not by violence but by Christlike love and courage. I can celebrate that.