Everything is on hold. At least until the other shoe drops. Will there likely be another terrorist attack? When will the United States launch a military strike in retaliation for the Sept. 11 killings at the World Trade Center in New York City? Can a great city and the thousands of families staggered by the unimaginable scale of death and devastation ever recover?

Compared to what is happening in the rest of the world, local public issues and personal annoyances are petty irritants, not worth talking or writing about.

Thus our relative silence on such matters, until we can sort out what happens next.

Having reached an age exalted enough to receive last month my first Social Security check, I thought I had experienced enough of the twists and turns, upsides and down, surprises, welcome and unwelcome, to be able to comprehend what we are going through. I thought I had worldliness and background enough to provide the context, but it turns out we don't have the vocabulary to discuss any of this with intelligence, understanding or meaning.

Thus, those of us who are commentators, not active participants, like the valiant rescue and recovery workers, or the firefighters, many of whom by the hundreds lost their lives, are rendered irrelevant. We are tongue-tied.

All we can do is worry, and express fears and concerns about the possible consequences of the terrorists' success.

Maybe it would be best for us to shut up and let the government leaders figure it all out and tell us what to do next.

We have seen much of the media sign on to that position in the hours and days after the World Trade Center and Pentagon airplane crashes. The media became virtually an arm of the government. And that continues to be the role the television media, especially, has chosen to play.

That makes me uneasy. For this is the same government, these are the same political, intelligence and military leaders who bollixed up the so-called Gulf War, a totally manufactured event, which in the end failed in its purpose. This is the government that failed to resolve without horrendous violence the domestic crises at Ruby Ridge and Waco; the same government that failed to pick up signals that Timothy McVeigh harbored hostile feelings toward the U.S.; the same government that mistakenly bombed the Chinese embassy in Belgrade, that kept on the payroll a CIA agent who for 20 years was selling secrets to our perceived enemies; the same government whose earlier attempt to track down and kill Osama bin Laden resulted in the total destruction of a pharmaceutical plant in Sudan, a government whose submarine in error capsized a Japanese ship resulting in a huge loss of life.

More pointedly, how much direct responsibility must the government take for its failure to detect those signs that promised the eventual terror that engulfed the nation on that bright, late summer morning and which continues to traumatize millions of Americans.

We support a huge federal establishment to provide certain basic services that as citizens we are unable to provide individually. Personal and national security is one of those essential, priceless services. Did the government let us down? Why? Who was responsible?

Ours is a big government, an often helpful and caring government, and by all means a rich and powerful government with stewardship of a rich and powerful country.

But that does not means it is a competent or intelligent government; it does not mean that we should rally behind it unthinkingly in every instance, especially in time of crisis when most of us are incapable of knowing which national decisions are the right ones.

Too much popular support for a government with a long track record of incompetence - in the little matters, like losing 40,000 tax returns this year, as well as the big, like successfully prosecuting a war on world-wide terrorism - might only encourage the government to act more recklessly or ineptly. That could have dire consequences not only for our own country but for innocent populations around the globe.

Thus, while there is much flag-waving and saber-rattling these days, it is okay, I believe, for some of us to continue to cast a critical eye at government policies and actions. We should be able to speak out without being accused of supporting or aiding the terrorists or being unfeeling about the thousands of victims of terrorism.

It will not be an easy time for any of us - government leaders and supporters and critics of certain military and political decisions. Despite the principle of freedom that is so often evoked when we talk about America, there have been periods of harsh repression and fierce censorship, too.

Without question this is a time of trial for the country. We need to stand together, but we can do so while disagreeing with each other or raising questions about the rightness of government actions.

If we can't do that, what is the point? Is America measured only by the strength of its economy, its commercialism and the far-reaching influence of its popular culture that engenders a love-hate reaction to us all around the world?

Or are there more important principles and values that are embodied in the American experience? We shall see soon enough.

Meanwhile, our lives and our world remain on hold.