I remember September 12th. Much of the previous day is a blur – hearing the news on NPR – driving to Phoebe Berks for my monthly gathering with church members – fielding phone calls from scared church members and friends – picking my daughter up from kindergarten and trying desperately to get the other parents to not talk about it or let their 5-year-old children see the carnage. Watching it again and again and again – listening to the xenophobic hate speech blaming Muslims – sitting numbly in my house. But September 12th? I remember it as clearly as my wedding day.
I saw people rushing downtown to help – police and firefighters and medical personnel from all over the country and the world goint in to help – neighbors in New York City sharing meals and housing people stranded in the city. I listened to the voices that didn’t buy into the anti-Muslim rhetoric, telling stories about their neighbors and cursing the evil that lives in some people while praising the good in most of us. Like the day before, I met some clergy colleagues at the local Mosque; we stood around in our collars as a witness, just in case some jerks decided to pay a visit and wreak havoc on the innocent congregants and building. I got phone calls from people who knew I grew up just outside of the city, asking if I was okay and did I know anyone affected by the attack. At that point, I didn’t; eventually, I did.
For a couple of weeks, church attendance increased. We opened the sanctuary during the week for people to come and sit, lost in prayer and their thoughts while we mourned as a nation. After a couple of weeks – maybe a month – things went back to what they were. We have a short memory – we look for band aids. Like so many tragic occurrences, we mumble our thoughts and prayers, rant about doing something, and then move on as we wait for the next loss. For a brief time, we were one. Then we turned to vengeance and turned on each other, pointing fingers and naming who was at fault. For a brief moment, we lived up to our better angels. Now, it seems, too many of us spend our time entertaining our inner demons.
We’ve had a few September 12-like moments in the last 23 years, and those have been like a cool breeze in our ever-increasing sauna like world. We will never be free of tragedy and loss; these are two of the things we all share in common. And we can become mired in them, accepting them as a way of life, along with anger and blame and regret. Or we can take a moment to breathe and allow our September 12th people to come out. We can live generously – we can give the benefit of the doubt – we can work to tame our inner bigots. September 11th was the nightmare – September 12th gave us a hint of the dream. I choose the dream.
Prayer – Holy God, You have given us the ability to work together for the common good. May we embrace the generosity You have built into our DNA. Amen.