I have come today to speak to you at a time when words have lost
their meaning. It is as though some edge of the world has broken off
and can never be mended. We offer you this morning music, the language
of the heart; and we offer silence, hoping that in this spaciousness
your grief might find a place for expression.
This morning I have for you no political speculation, no sociological
analysis, no theological musings on the subject of evil. Nor will
I pretend to understand, to explain, what has happened to our country.
The sorting out will come later, in due time. Today we come together
for mourning.
Like many of you, I woke up Tuesday morning to National Public Radio,
woke up to news that I could scarcely believe. Was this some strange
kind of joke, some contemporary "War of the Worlds"? As
the news continued, I knew we were in the midst of a horror story
like unto none we have ever known in this country. I called a friend,
for in times like this, we reach out for others. "Are you listening
to the news?" I said. "Have you heard what has happened?"
Then fear set in. Are we in a war? Will the violence escalate? I
felt vulnerable, as never before. I thought about my children, as
many of you must have thought about your children or other kin in
faraway places. "Are they safe?" we thought. "Are they
frightened?" Some of you had friends or business associates who
worked in the World Trade Center. You hoped they were among the lucky
ones who escaped.
I dressed and went to the church. We began getting calls, many voices:
"Will the church be open?" "Will you be open today?"
"I need a place to go. Will you open the church?" We held
a prayer vigil on the evening of the attack. More than 100 of you
drifted in and out of the quiet of the Salmon Street sanctuary. There
was no talk. Just silence, the lighting of candles, and weeping.
Though I am a person who cries easily, I was not one of the ones
weeping that evening. In fact, I have shed not a tear. Truthfully,
I cannot take in what has happened just yet. The sheer numbers of
the injured and the dead defy imagination. And the manner of their
death, many vanished with hardly a trace-maybe just a photo or part
of a charred letter scattered on the street. My tears will come when
they will come. Right now I feel numb, empty, disoriented. Inside
is a deep well of sadness.
Church. Why did so many people all over the country flock to places
of worship on that fateful day. It is to these sacred spaces that
we come to mourn collectively, that we come together in a community
of love and faith that holds us when we falter, that reassures us
that we are not alone, and that helps us to heal so that we may once
again live lives of courage and hope.
It is my practice to pray once a day, just as I arise from sleep.
But these days I feel as if I'm praying all the time-at last I "pray
without ceasing," as the scripture says, for I feel joined by
blood and by spirit to everyone in this country, to every American,
and in particular to the victims of this cruel, barbarous attack.
How can we not be deeply touched? How can we not be changed? We cannot
help but open our hearts; our presence cannot be but genuine. There
is no place to hide. We are one.
Though fear and despair have held us in their grip, something else
is pushing its way up just now through the ashes on the streets of
New York-it is the sense of humanity that we hold in common. We are
there with the people waiting in line, hoping against hope to hear
that mother is all right, that a dear husband somehow has escaped;
we are in the firehouse as the firefighters mourn their brothers,
those who bravely waded into the destruction, perishing as they tried
to save others; all of us are there at the window of the building
next to the World Trade Center, watching in horror as the plane crashes
into the glass and steel, again and again and again. We are reminded
of our own losses, the frailty of flesh. We know once again that we
are vulnerable, that tomorrow is a hope but never a promise.
There are other images, images that renew our spirits, images that
tell another truth, and that is this: though human beings are capable
of the most horrendous evil, they are also capable of startling goodness.
I see a young nurse whose fiance is missing--she volunteers to care
for those who can be saved; the man who worked on one of the lower
floors and could have escaped but refused to leave the side of his
quadriplegic colleague; the men in the doomed plane in Pennsylvania
who, even as they faced certain death, moved to keep others from dying;
the e-mail sent by an employee in the World Trade Center, who, just
before his life was snuffed out, sent the message, "Thank you
for being such a great friend." Let these images stay alive within
you, for they encourage us to live in such a way that when death comes
for us, we will have proved worthy of the life we have been given.
This vicious and unprecedented terrorist attack was the sacrifice
of flesh to ideology. It was a momentary victory. We are making every
effort to find and to punish those responsible, and that is as it
should be. Hear me now: there is no ideology, no religious persuasion,
no political purpose, none whatsoever, that is worth the tiniest scrap
of living human flesh.
There is the temptation, of course, to strike back with all our force,
and soon, perhaps before we are entirely sure who is the enemy. That
is the frustration that we live with just now. I pray that we will
not strike down innocent civilians, as our innocent civilians have
been so cruelly struck down: accountants, office managers, secretaries,
ordinary people living their lives. Immediately there were incidents
of harassment and threats of violence toward our Arab-American and
our Muslim neighbors. Somebody has to pay, we say. But let it not
be those who have done no harm, whose only crime is having dark skin
and a religion that is unfamiliar to us.
I wish to leave you with a simple blessing this morning: be kind
to yourselves during these hard days; let yourself grieve, remember
that your pain is measured by the depth of your love; stay close to
your children and let them know they are secure in your care; remember
to count as worthy every human being, of whatever race or creed. And
dear friends, light a candle sometime, somewhere, in these dark days
to remind yourself of the one single thing we know to be true beyond
any doubt: hate will never, never triumph in the end. It never has,
and it never will. Love will prevail. Love will prevail.
So be it. Amen.
