SIX MONTHS AFTER
by Forrest Church
March 10, 2001
When I realized that tomorrow will mark the six month anniversary of the terrorist attack on America, I changed my sermon topic. I had planned to preach from my new book, Bringing God Home, which should be hitting the bookstores any day now. I suppose I’m still speaking from it, because, though a short book, it contains almost everything I know—almost none of which, by the way, I learned in Kindergarten. The book is about how we struggle over the course of a lifetime to make a home where we can find both comfort and meaning, and how, to accomplish this, we must finally be at home within ourselves. To this extent, it does contain, implicitly at least, my response to what happened six months ago.
Think back on how life changed for us that day. In a single stroke, together we were forced to front our mortality. Four hijacked planes and the sea of destruction that followed in their wake knocked almost every life they did not end off automatic pilot. When this happened—indeed whenever it happens—we question not only the course the world is taking, but the course of our lives as well. Where are we heading and to what purpose? we ask. Which leads to the most important question of all: Are we living in such a way that our lives will prove to be worth dying for?
My guess is that few of us would wish to return to being exactly the same individuals we were before September 11. Though the half life of tragedy can be shorter than one might imagine, blunting its impact over time, the imprint lingers. More deeply aware of life’s tenuousness, and more cognizant therefore of what really matters, many of us are at least slightly different people than we were. Yes we are likely more frightened and perplexed. Witnessing the avenging dark angel of terrorism’s visitation to our own city, cast a long shadow over human nature and our future as a species. Yet the better angels of our nature beckoned as well. Being heartened, chastened, tempered, and challenged by the myriad witnesses to how magnificent the human spirit can be when called to rise to its true occasion, led us to examine and question our own lives and priorities. And to ponder our mortality. And to wonder what we might do from this day forward to rescript our obituaries? The very stories that broke our hearts made them beat faster. The emptiness we felt cast every selfish thought of petty fulfillment into question. These are good things. They save us from ourselves by saving us for others. They remind us that the only thing that can never be taken from us is the love we have given away.
Love’s relationship to death is riddled with paradox. The more you love the more you risk to lose and therefore stand to fear. Yet love casts out all fear. The greater your love the deeper your grief at a time of loss. Therefore, grief is good.
On September 12th, at our candlelight memorial the evening after terror struck, I pointed out that the Chinese ideogram for the word, crisis, contains two ideographs, or word pictures. One represents "danger," the other, "opportunity." In a sense, the extent of the danger in which we find ourselves is the measure of our opportunity for growth. This is the leitmotiv of my new book as well. In it I tell not only the story of my own spiritual awakening, but mine the literature of the spirit for touchstones and milestones to help us find and mark our way on life’s journey. One reason conversion stories can be so compelling is that they juxtapose the soul’s pre-conversion bondage with its post-conversion liberty. Before our redemption, we hold ourselves captive. We remain prisoners until another turns the key that unlocks our hearts. Chinese finger puzzles—those little woven sheathes of bamboo grass—illustrate a like point. When we pull our fingers apart, the trap tightens; when we push them together, it loosens and we spring free.
This morning I shall pause to reflect on the journey we have taken together these past six months. It may appear that things have returned to normal. People honk and one another again and rarely ask strangers in elevators how they are doing, or if they are okay. But each of us has, imprinted on our souls, a new Rorshack to ponder when left alone with our thoughts. And what we make of it both has and will make a difference in what we make of ourselves and of our lives. Here are a few thoughts to make the half year passage we have taken in one another’s precious company.
The holocaust of the World Trade Center transfixed a bewildered nation, drawing us into the world's violence and steeling our national will. The challenge was unmistakable and the after-images almost unbearably poignant. A grieving nation witnessed countless deeds of heroism and as many reminders of our fundamental human kinship. As the soot and ash rained down, both literally and figuratively people became one color, one class and one faith, carrying one another down stairs and falling to their knees in prayer. Ours was a single family, united as never before in recent history.
Almost at once, a less cynical nation perceived the need for and value of federal and city services and aide. Public trust in our government grew dramatically. Trust in one another grew as well. Repeated images of the horror were soon displaced by testimonials to heroism: firefighters rushing up the stairs to help their fellows down; the courage of a little band of passengers on the doomed flight of United 93, saving the nation's Capitol or White House from almost sure destruction; the heroic leadership of Rudolph Giuliani, a hitherto controversial New York City mayor, who three months later earned the honor of being featured as Time magazine's Person of the Year. Above all, we witnessed the spontaneous splendor and goodness of ordinary citizens. Residents of the most cosmopolitan city in the world put aside all differences when called on for neighborly assistance. Where before so many of the images of America televised around the globe advertised decadence, arrogance, selfishness, and criminality, the world was at last able to observe us as we like to see ourselves: a kind-hearted and generous-spirited people.
Part of this is due to what is popularly known as "the Buffalo snowstorm disaster scenario", when a common plight reduces everyday differences, of nature or opinion, to an afterthought. Yet, no matter how extraordinary the occasion, to view Americans of every religion and color demonstrating fidelity to their common humanity was nothing less than redemptive for a world in which divisions according to race, class, and creed are commonplace.
We also came together religiously. The Memorial Service at the National Cathedral featured Catholics and Protestants, Muslims and Jews. President George W. Bush took time out from attending to the defeat of the Taliban and the battle against Osama bin Laden to worship at an American mosque. Throughout the country, countless American citizens weighed their own mortality and questioned their priorities, awakening once again to life's fragility and preciousness. The entire family joined as one to mourn a common loss.
Most telling of all, where it might logically have been dashed following the attack by Islamic extremists, Americans of every faith expressed a deeper kinship with their Muslim neighbors. A Rueters poll taken two months after the attack registered a sharp rise in the percentage of Americans who viewed Muslim Americans in a favorable light. Before September 11, 45 percent of our citizens had a favorable view of their Muslim neighbors; in November, this gauge had risen to 59 percent of Americans. The change was most evident among Republicans, whose favorable opinion of Muslims soared from 29 to 64 percent. That the attested and observable rise in both patriotic and religious spirit following September 11 should find expression also in a commensurate growth in religious tolerance witnesses eloquently to the true nature of the American Creed—its ideal of a pluralistic union almost unimaginable beyond the borders of a society in which faith and freedom are honored equally.
Muslims dismayed by how their faith has been caricatured by Islamic militants (and caricaturized by fearful Christians) rightly point out that most chapters in the Qu’ran open with the words, "in the name of God, the Most Merciful, the Most Compassionate." Recognizing the polyphonous nature of Islam while at the same time acknowledging how profoundly faith and freedom harmonize in our own history, can provide us with the beginnings of a common language by which to translate our differences in a world where non-translatable differences yield the prospect of spiraling destruction. Rather than viewing our predicament as the inevitable clash of civilizations with an ultimate zero-sum outcome (the permanent disruption of McWorld by Jihad’s martyrs or the eradication of Jihad by McWorld’s swat teams and heavy artillary), we might instead seek a religious solution to what is in essence a religious predicament. If the most promising path toward adjudicating all differences leads us to draw from common springs, by tapping our own religious heritage we may ultimately be able to draft healing inspiration from a deeper source.
The scriptures of every religion contain language conducive to peace. Heretofore these visions have been developed independently. Today, however, the enforced reality of multi-culturalism and religious pluralism has sponsored an unprecedented inter-faith dialogue, with the most eloquent voices almost effortlessly speaking what is gradually developing into a common language. The models here are many, including those offered by some of the most universally respected leaders of the last century, each of whom brought moral and religious intent to the resolution of political conflict. From Mahatma Ghandi and Martin Luther King, Jr. to the Dalai Lama, Archbishop Desmond Tutu, Pope John Paul II, and Thich-Nhat Hanh, the language of world peace and mutual kinship has been refashioned for a new age.
Each of these prophets offers a searing critique of the valueless nature of secular materialism, while condemning the barbarism fostered by religious fanaticism. Each weds religion and politics, while respecting the separation of church and state. And each condemns the purblind literalism that would yoke believers to the most incendiary texts in their respective traditions by invoking the saving and uniting spirit that distinguish their own traditions most luminous touchstones. "The greatest commandment is to love the Lord our God with all your heart, and the second is like unto it, to love your neighbors as yourself," Jesus taught. The Torah holds that ""he who turns away from a stranger might as well turn away from the most high God." And the Qu’ran echoes, "Allah put different peoples on this earth not that they might despise one another, but that they might come to know one another and cherish one another." More redemptively than global economics (which can divide the very people they interlink) these universal religious teachings offer, in the language of the heart, a set of ideals that enjoins international cooperation and may therefore help to save us not only from our enemies, but also from ourselves.
Two years ago, speaking of American fundamentalists, Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York had earlier modeled the way in which a non-fundamentalist might begin to bridge the divide. "The energy animating the responsible fundamentalist right has come from their sense of life getting away from us—of meaning being lost and people being turned into kind of amoral decision-makers because there weren’t any overriding values that they related to. And I have a lot of sympathy with that." Expressing an appreciation for the religious values of people with whom she might otherwise profoundly disagree, Senator Clinton’s words strike a deep common chord. They also remind us that the religious spirit, enjoining love to neighbor, offers a redemptive answer to the religious letter, enjoining Jihad or Armegeddon. The rekindling of this spirit is our world’s only hope.
Let me close on a personal note. I know that many of you continue to struggle with your fears—many of them justifiable. I also know, thought it is always our job, finding hope within our hearts can be hard, especially in times such as these. Please come in a talk to me, or any of the ministers, about the state of your soul, or any trouble you may be having getting your feet back on solid ground. I can meet you before work or after, almost any day you wish. Make an appointment, or just drop by. We can seize at least a little time together and then set up a time for a more leisurely chat. I have gained so much from those of you who have mustered the courage to open your hearts to me over the past few months. Because of such courage and openness, and for no other reason, All Souls is a different institution than it was before September 11th. Lifelines only work if there is someone holding on to each end. No time I spend in my ministry is better invested than the time I share, one on one, with you.
Let us join our hearts in prayer.
For the innocent whose lives are violated by terror’s dementia; for all the grieving families—here and throughout the world—beset by the shadow of violence; for our servicemen and women and the risks they take daily on our nation’s behalf; for all those who witness for peace; for the broken human family; for all God’s children: we pray for courage, hope, understanding, and the presence of a healing spirit, kindled from heart to heart, beginning with our own, that grace may be received and love to neighbor again be the emblem of community, here and throughout the riven world. Amen.
Closing Words
In our universalist faith, there is one Light, Truth, or God—call it what you will. This Light shines through many windows, refracted in as many differing ways. Blinded by the Light shining through their own window, radical fundamentalists incite their followers to throw stones through other people’s windows. Blind to the Light—cognizant only of the bewildering variety of windows and worshipers—absolute relativists conclude that the Light does not exist. Both fail to recognize that the windows are not the Light, but only where the Light shines through.
The universalist spirit counters both absolutism and relativism by an explicit embrace of pluralism (one light, many windows). In our union of faith and freedom, freedom tempers faith (by forbidding rock-throwing in the temple or enforced support or reverence for any given shrine), and faith elevates freedom (by reminding the disparate worshipers of what unites them, the one Light, the one God).
In America we have a name for this: E Pluribus Unum. To heal the fractures in a divided world, our legacy must now become our mission.