A custom is begun! Because of the vengeance that the king took against Haman for Esther, the Jews are to remember their salvation. On the fourteenth and fifteenth day of the month they are to send gifts of food to one another and presents to the poor.
Oh, God, help me to understand violence! Help me to understand vengeance. I am pretty good at the other sins, like lust and greed, pride and gossip, but violence I just don't understand. I also don't really understand the tribalism that is beyond it. Is that because I am an immigrant myself and know that I have lived among many tribes and don't really belong to any one? Is that because I am a coward and don't know how to be truly faithful to anything? Surely there are reasons for me not to enjoy Esther's victory and Haman's use of violence to get behind it. Is the war really set up for war and then for reparations? Can two days for the poor ever justify destroying their villages or their airports or their homes? What is the point of violence? Isn't it finally just too expensive? Does it ever have lasting victories? I think of India and Pakistan and the Mombai train bombing, or South and North Korea and the utter starvation of the North Koreans. I think of Beruit now being destroyed by Israel because some of Beruit houses the Hezbolah. What about Iraq or Vietnam? I could go on. Violence doesn't make sense to me. Not Esther's, not Haman's, not anyone's.
So where do I go from here? In this year of the eighth anniversary of 9/11, perhaps I am best off reflecting on that violence against my country.
The twin towers of the World Trade Center fell on September 11, 2001, leaving nearly 3,000 people dead. As catastrophes go, the death toll is small — but the lingering international and personal effects are not. The intentional and precise violence of the acts, combined as they were with secondary attacks on Washington DC sites, caused an international ripple of fear and installed a new word in everyday vocabularies. The word is "terrorism." On top of these facts there is a thick overlay of religious hostility. The people who bombed American buildings were Muslim. On top of the religious layer to the physical violence, there is the ongoing war in Iraq. This war has killed more people than 9/11 attacks did.
Another number matters: one million people per day visit the exhibit in St. Paul's Chapel in lower Manhattan to see a simple display of what happened that day. They also stare at the hole in the ground across the street and surely have what can only be called a spiritual experience, one of awe, fear, and trembling. Where great power stood, great emptiness prevails.
Linda Hannick, on the communications and marketing staff of the Trinity Wall Street Church, remembers watching a piece of the building fly past her office on 9/11. She joined thousands of others in leaving her office and going to the street to see a life-draining horror. Part of her neighborhood was crashing down around her. Linda put together the exhibit at neighboring St. Paul's. How has she changed in eight years? Not much. The horror remains close and precise. The exhibit gives her a frame for the chaos of the experience. She compares herself to the one elderly woman on the last Staten Island Ferry to leave the city on the original day. "We were all there in stunned silence, with orange life jackets on us. Helicopters flew overhead and you could hear us all think, Finally, the government has come to help and protect us from whatever is going to happen next. Then one elderly woman raised her hands to the sky and spoke for the entire boat. In anguish, she said, ‘God,' and broke down and wept." Linda's ongoing exhibit is that framed cry of anguish that breaks the silence.
Linda's story takes us back to one clear day in September whose effects linger and linger. Not only do the effects linger internationally in war, they also have uncanny forms of personal reminders. At airports, we take our belts and shoes off, we open our computers, and we get stripped of our fingernail clippers. It is hard to remember a time when we did not perform these social rituals. Likewise, parents argue that teenagers must have cell phones in school, just "in case" something happens.
We will not know the full effect of 9/11 until the wars stop, the artists and singers start, or until the poets work their way to meaning. For now, on this eighth anniversary, we can begin to see what might have changed in our ministries.
The Reverend Rochelle Stackhouse, pastor-elect of the Church of the Redeemer in New Haven, Connecticut, and a UCC minister, speaks of the fear. "It's like we are in permanent duck and cover mode, like we were when I hid as a child in nuclear fallout shelters. My preaching is almost all about fear."
That theme continues in the memories and current behavior of Rabbi Michael Feinstein, whose work places him still very close to the site of Ground Zero. He reports a new appreciation of evil, a nearly constant below the surface fear. When the attack actually happened, Rabbi Feinstein found himself in a deep darkness. He recalls how when he finally starting running north away from the center that women's shoes were everywhere. They had been abandoned so that the people could move faster. Sometimes he "sees those shoes and almost smiles at the near comic effect of them." He remembers "the darkness" and "the smell" that descended over lower Manhattan. He could not go to work for three months in his same office. When he went back, he knew his ministry had forever changed. Henceforth, he would be "simultaneously aware of evil and fragility and the preciousness of ordinary life." How often does he think about 9/11 today? "Daily," he responds.
The Reverend Jim Smucker, retired conference minister in the UCC, says that 9/11 drove him to a similar sense of preciousness and fragility. He says what is different about him is not just age and living in a retirement village. What is different is that he is profoundly aware of small stuff. He has a sense that terror could again fall from the sky and so he is best off paying attention to what is close by. He names,
The love Onieta and I have shared for over sixty years.The love Onieta and I have shared for over sixty years.
The love and caring the Convalescent Center staff shows toward my helpless wife and many others in the same condition.The love and caring the Convalescent Center staff shows toward my helpless wife and many others in the same condition.
The power of music and art to lift our sights beyond ourselves and point to something we are only beginning to understand.The power of music and art to lift our sights beyond ourselves and point to something we are only beginning to understand.
The thrill of wild dancing to a pounding beat.The thrill of wild dancing to a pounding beat.
The wonder and beauty of the constantly renewing creation.The wonder and beauty of the constantly renewing creation.
Our oneness with each other and all of life.Our oneness with each other and all of life.
The courage and powerful beauty of people who put their life on the line in the interest of peace and justice.The courage and powerful beauty of people who put their life on the line in the interest of peace and justice.
Barbara Cawthorne Crafton is an Episcopal priest who worked at Ground Zero at the time of the attack. She spent hours and days with recovery workers, keeping them strong to do recovery work. Her reminiscence of this time says,
We are not the only ones whose hearts are broken by what has happened. God's heart is broken, too.We are not the only ones whose hearts are broken by what has happened. God's heart is broken, too.
And so is my heart. I show it in odd ways. Can't sleep, of course, and cry several times a day, of course. But I also have lost, quite abruptly, a one-a-day-and-sometimes-two-a-day murder mystery habit that goes back years. I have lost — quite abruptly — lost it without even thinking about it. I just noticed, sometime in mid-October, that I hadn't read a murder mystery in weeks, and I hadn't finished the one I had been reading on the train the morning of September 11, and wasn't remotely curious about how it ended. That I had no desire to read another one. I had always found them relaxing, those page turners, relaxing in direct and strange proportion to their goriness and perversity, as if fictional evil were somehow talismanic against the encroachment of real evil into the world. But no more — I don't want to read about people deliberately hurting and killing other people anymore. That I used to like these things seems to me now to be monstrous. The Hell humanity really creates is more than enough Hell for anyone.1 And so is my heart. I show it in odd ways. Can't sleep, of course, and cry several times a day, of course. But I also have lost, quite abruptly, a one-a-day-and-sometimes-two-a-day murder mystery habit that goes back years. I have lost — quite abruptly — lost it without even thinking about it. I just noticed, sometime in mid-October, that I hadn't read a murder mystery in weeks, and I hadn't finished the one I had been reading on the train the morning of September 11, and wasn't remotely curious about how it ended. That I had no desire to read another one. I had always found them relaxing, those page turners, relaxing in direct and strange proportion to their goriness and perversity, as if fictional evil were somehow talismanic against the encroachment of real evil into the world. But no more — I don't want to read about people deliberately hurting and killing other people anymore. That I used to like these things seems to me now to be monstrous. The Hell humanity really creates is more than enough Hell for anyone.1
I caught Amy Blackmarr, author of Going To Grand: Simple Life On A Georgia Road, 1998, on her way to seminary in New Haven. When I asked her if her life had changed since 9/11, she practically exploded. "Changed? You bet it changed ... I am going to seminary." Many studies have shown that an extraordinary number of people have shifted careers in the years since 9/11, trying to go into more meaningful professions. Would they have shifted anyway without 9/11? We can never know. However, Amy Blackmarr represents the more spiritual ribbon of American life that we have all had to notice since 9/11.
James Olson, Associate Dean at Boston University's Marsh Chapel, speaks of being in Vermont and having a parishioner call him and tell him "something happened." Like many clergy, he immediately went to work, engaging members of his congregation in caretaking of others.
September 11 may genuinely have been the end of American civilization as we knew it. Not because a few Islamic radicals attacked us; rather, it is the response of some of my fellow Americans, particularly those who lead the government, that may ultimately bring America to its knees and give the radicals the victory they ultimately desired.September 11 may genuinely have been the end of American civilization as we knew it. Not because a few Islamic radicals attacked us; rather, it is the response of some of my fellow Americans, particularly those who lead the government, that may ultimately bring America to its knees and give the radicals the victory they ultimately desired.
My own preaching now has become more pointedly against the government's response to the threat to our nation. My own preaching now has become more pointedly against the government's response to the threat to our nation.
While Olson's preaching about the futility of revenge is one response, so is Stackhouse's pastoral preaching against fear. Between these two related poles, most clergy seem to live.
Pat Marrin is an editor and widely engaged in Roman Catholic ministries.
My ministry is an editor of a liturgical resource (Celebration) published by the National Catholic Reporter. As the impact of 9/11 sank in, I found myself processing the event through my liturgical lens. More than just an act pf violent destruction, the attacks on the World Trade center, the Pentagon and, presumably, the White House were brilliantly conceived assaults on American identity and the illusion of pre-eminence in the world. The most visible symbols ... were struck, not just on the surface but at that deeper root level. We were dealing ... with masters of metaphor and metaphysics. The perpetrators of 9/11 had executed a flawless, surgical and liturgical blow at the central nervous system of our nation.My ministry is an editor of a liturgical resource (Celebration) published by the National Catholic Reporter. As the impact of 9/11 sank in, I found myself processing the event through my liturgical lens. More than just an act pf violent destruction, the attacks on the World Trade center, the Pentagon and, presumably, the White House were brilliantly conceived assaults on American identity and the illusion of pre-eminence in the world. The most visible symbols ... were struck, not just on the surface but at that deeper root level. We were dealing ... with masters of metaphor and metaphysics. The perpetrators of 9/11 had executed a flawless, surgical and liturgical blow at the central nervous system of our nation.
Our response ... is the problem ... Before 9/11 we worshiped with less insight, in more insular comfort zones. Now every worship service begins with soul-searching and contrition ... we pray better and more deeply.2 Our response ... is the problem ... Before 9/11 we worshiped with less insight, in more insular comfort zones. Now every worship service begins with soul-searching and contrition ... we pray better and more deeply.2
Both Rabbi Feinstein and Pat Marrin note a silver lining in the cloud. They see that we have been forced to go deep.
Dr. Martin Marty's ministry is writing and speaking to town-and-gown and professional church leadership, where since 9/11, he has been guided by two texts. One is Jose Ortega y Gasset: "Decisive historical changes do not come from great wars, terribly cataclysms, or ingenious inventions: it is enough that the heart of man incline its sensitive crown to one side or the other of the horizon, toward optimism or toward pessimism, toward heroism or toward utility, toward combat or toward peace." Ministry is less about dealing with world affairs than with the sensitive crown of the human heart.
His second guide is Reinhold Niebuhr who said (paraphrased) in early Cold War Days, that the US is a gadget-filled paradise suspended in a hell of international security, and on 9/11 the cord was cut and we've been dropped into the scene the world has always known: Insecurity ... so we have joined the rest of the human race. Insecurity is the big word, exploitable by politicians and others who play on fear to mess things up. So we ask, what is the nature of the "security" with which people in the nation and of faith might believe?
Clearly, it is too soon to know very much at all. What we have are glimpses. We do have themes, big ones at that. The themes are fear, fragility, revenge, insecurity, a strange joining of the majority of the world, finding ourselves in places from which we thought Americans were exempt.
Woody Guthrie might well have the last word. When he sings of "Songs of generations singing in my veins," we know that remarkable unity that we now have, with the rest of the world but also with each other. We were the people who became one because of an external attack. For a brief period of time there was a nearly splendid national unity. That unity has gone the way of all flesh — into fear, revenge seeking, war.
Ministries may not have yet changed toward something different and better — but they could. Our revenge stands in the long line of revenges, not even begun by Esther and Haman, but going from way before that. We can and should do better.
Prayer for 9/11
Eighth Anniversary
Eight years and yet 9/11 feels like yesterday! Give us the power to forget and remember the horror — both, not either. Let us remember our incredulity and fear, our impotence, and our morbid curiosity. Let us remember the love we have for loved ones lost, even those we only know by newspaper name, even those long forgotten by the numbness that has become our protection and armor. Let us remember firemen and police, mayors and presidents, and all whose spiritual budgets, and lungs, remain stressed.
Let us soon forget the urgency for revenge and the blood now spilled because of the World Trade Center towers toppling. Let us move beyond blood for blood, eye for eye, insult for insult, and bomb for bomb. Let the wars cease and the healing begin. Turn the twin towers to ploughshares, and our revenge and rage into world community. When 9/11 is repented and the cloud's silver linings emerge, let us remember the truth under the rubble of resentment: bad can come to good. Terror can turn to truth about the world's peoples. We can learn from horror. Weeping endures for the night but joy comes in the morning. Let Allah join Jesus and Yahweh and Buddha and the entire great Pantheon, in a common prayer that peace topple war and friendship replace violence among all God's people. Amen.
1. Barbara Cawthorne Crafton, Mass In Time Of War (Lanham, Maryland: Cowley Publications, 2003), p. 14.
2. Pat Marrin, editor, Celebrations magazine (Kansas City, Missouri: National Catholic Reporter Publishing Company), Summer 2004.