A Poem and Reflection On the Occasion of Remembrance of 9/11 September 11, 2022
St. Thomas Episcopal, Ahoskie, NC Thomas E. Wilson, Guest Presider
Isaiah 61:1-4 Psalm 31:1-5,19-21 Romans 8:31-39 Matthew 5:1-10
September 11 Keeps Coming.
20th Century Anthropologist and Philosopher, Loren Eiseley, writing in a collection of essays named, Star Thrower, published before his death in 1977, reflected “Ironically, I who profess no religion find the whole of my life a religious pilgrimage.” Another way of saying this is in his 1957 book, The Immense Journey, writing about the evolution of humans, imagined about the development away from mere stimulus then response, to stimulus, then reflection about a deeper meaning and then response.
“For the first time in four billion years a living creature had contemplated himself and heard with a sudden, unaccountable loneliness, the whisper of the wind in the night reeds.”
The contemplation of self and hearing “with a sudden, unaccountable loneliness, the whisper of the wind in the night reeds”, is what is behind the lessons for today, and the remembrance of the events of, reflection about, and response to, September 11, 2001, as a religious pilgrimage. It begins with a break of the stimulus and the response. The primal response to a stimulus of hurt is to hurt back; if you are attacked, then you immediately run away or need to do a bigger counter attack. “Don't mess with me.” If you are a religious dilettante, you can find justification of “an Eye for and Eye.” But as Gandhi and the Dalai Lama remind us; “An eye for and eye brings us to where we are all blind.” If you take the word “religion” seriously, you understand that the word “religion” comes from the Latin word “ligare” meaning to “bind together'”; literally to bind together again, to bind oneself to others, to creation to something beyond oneself.
However, the interruption between the stimulus, be it pleasure or pain, and the primal response is when there is a contemplation, an awareness of “the whisper of the wind”, the mystery outside oneself which we sometimes call “God”, or part of the “religious pilgrimage” of human life. This time of contemplation which interrupts the primal action of stimulus to response is the time when we ask ourselves important questions before we choose to respond.
These questions include:
If God has given us direction to love our neighbor and to take care of God's creation as the core of a religious pilgrimage; how does that apply to this situation?
The person(s) who did this stimulus; who is he, she or them?
What was behind the stimulus given? What led up to it?
Was it an accident?
Is forgiveness an option?
Will my response hurt, damage, or help others?
Will my response be helpful to bring about a reconciliation or a deepening of a relationship?
Where is the Holy Space?
Will my response break open my heart or shut it tight?
What have we learned from similar situations?
The lessons speak Good news to us in the mist of broken times. The Prophet Isaiah speaks to bind up the broken hearted. The Psalmist calls God her “Tower of Strength”. The Apostle Paul thunders out:
“For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.”
Jesus, in the Gospel lesson from Matthew, has had crowds of sick and broken people come to him looking for healing. They are heart broken and each living creature is contemplating themselves and hearing with their “unaccountable loneliness” the voice of Jesus when he stands up and speaks to them to tell them how blessed they are, for the living God is in the sacred space between them and their illnesses.
19 centuries later, in what is now Poland, Hasidic Rabbi Menachem Mendel of Kotzk, counseled, “There is nothing more whole than a broken heart.” This is a continuation of when students centuries before asked, “Why did God write all the laws on our hearts and not in them?” The earlier Rabbis said that we can only understand those laws when the heart is broken open, allowing the truth of them to rest in our broken hearts. Otherwise, it becomes just a collection of legalisms. Any true religious pilgrimage begins in the space between between the stimulus, inserting then a contemplation to listen, then the response in light of that contemplation is called for.
I remember September 11, 2001. I was serving in St. Paul's Episcopal Church in Macon Georgia. I left the Rectory on College Street, walking next door to the Parish Hall/ Administration/Education Building, which was originally an orphanage, and arrived at 8:00 AM to check my messages, leave the instructions to the Secretary, pick up the reserved sacrament case from Sunday. At 8:05 I start, that Part of my weekly habit on Tuesday mornings, taking a lovely end of summer- beginning of fall, walk from my office in the Education and office building, walking East quietly and reflectively past the Rectory, and then past the Sanctuary on the corner, turn North down Forsyth street to the next block, to St. Paul's Apartments, on St. Paul's Street, a high rise for independent Senior Living build by the church as part of its ministry. I go in the Apartments' fellowship hall where I would, starting at 8:15 AM, preside over an abbreviated Eucharist with reserve sacrament followed by a Bible Study of the lessons for the coming week. All was right with the world! It was 8:30 AM.
It was during the Bible Study that we received news that a plane had hit a skyscraper in New York City. We thought it was a regrettable accident, so we stopped to pray for this accident and the people involved. Someone remembered that during World War II, in 1945, a B-25 bomber flying in a thick fog had crashed into the Empire State Building. Then the second plane hit the other tower. We did some more prayers and then I went back to the office, changed the phone message to tell callers that the Sanctuary would be open for prayers. Then the 3rd plane hit the Pentagon. I sent the Secretary home, checked on my wife, looked at the television coverage and the Fourth plane went down in Pennsylvania. I went to be with people if they chose to come to the sanctuary.
I prayed for peace, but part of me was furious about the slaughter of innocents. I thought about the orphans, widows and parents of those who died. In my anger, I wanted to find out who was responsible and wanted to get revenge. My heart was breaking and I went to ring the church bells, slowly in mourning. As the bells mourned I remembered the chorus of the Leonard Cohen song Anthem:
Ring the bells that
still can ring
Forget your perfect offering
There is a crack, a
crack in everything
That’s how the light gets in.
It would be nice to say that we as a nation entered into a religious pilgrimage after 9/11. But cries for justice were drowned out, as the screams for revenge grew too loud. We went to war with our enemies and then with another enemy, and then with each other. All sorts of wars are still going on as egos get bruised, truth gets twisted, relationships become weaponized, hearts get slammed shut, as we respond unthinkingly quickly to stimulus. What we are doing today is to see our path in the light of a religious pilgrimage.
September 11 Keeps Coming.
On that September day, everything was promised,
a day where I could be a blessing to those in need,
but then turning into day full of whimpering plead.
“Where in hell are you?” cried Doubting Thomas.
To a whisper of the wind in now empty sanctuary,
the gentle whisperer said, “Now you have a choice;
you can listen to your fear or listen to another voice;
Rebbe Kotzk saying broken hearts needn't be scary.
Your Rabbi has said to the broken hearted; “Blessed
are you knowing you're broken, longing to be whole,
but first is the beginning, in the healing of your soul,
so fear and hatred will be removed from your breast.”
Now is the time, past the time, to listen, slow down,
before we forget we are all standing on Holy Ground.
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