This week, I've been reflecting on the meaning of this upcoming anniversary on Sunday of the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001. In preparation for writing this article, I looked back and found my reflection for this space from five years ago, on the fifth anniversary. There is, maybe unsurprisingly, not a lot more to say; I still remember what it was like that day, I still feel similarly sad about what has happened in our country, the encroaches on civil liberties and rampant racial profiling and targeting of those who are (or "appear to be," whatever that means!) Muslim. Constant war, 10 years later. Deep political polarization (a problem of many ages, to be sure).
At the same time, I was struck with an article in the Globe last week about closure; how, psychologically, it's a pretty nonsensical topic. We don't ever just get over stuff; it feels different over time, but there's no end. Now, I grieve the outcomes of this global "war on terror" as much I do those events of that day. The thousands and thousands killed in the wars of the last ten years are as grievable as the 3,000 on that Tuesday morning 10 years ago. No one is expendable.
10 years later, we meditate on the day that "the world changed." Did it change? Because the US realized that we were not invincible? In the nervous days after September 11, 2001, my new seminary classmates and I joked with each other about how we had to go for drinks/buy an ipod/eat cake/etc, or else the terrorists would have won. Now, you can't leave your suitcase at your seat in the airport to go to the bathroom. Is that the same? As we become more and more suspicious of each other, the simple calculus of "winning" and "losing" doesn't stand up. We're all losing somehow, but it is also true that another 9/11 didn't happen; a lot of hard work has made sure of it, and it would be foolish not to be grateful.
This is what I wrote in this space five years ago:
;The tricky part, of course, is that we are all called to take up that same cross [of Jesus] and embody that same love and peace. All of us, and all the time. We are all called to love and forgive our enemies-always. The hard truth of the cross is that all things are reconciled to God in Jesus Christ-all things and all people. It's not up to you or to me to decide what or who is in or out. At a time of escalating violence-in Iraq, in our cities, in the Sudan, seemingly everywhere-Christ's call to peacemaking is even more important. Today, on this September 12, remember that it's true-we do live in a different world. But it's not a world made different just because of the violence of terrorists, it's a world made different because of Christ's love.
So wherever your political sympathies lie, pray for peace today. Pray for peace that God will show us the path of a third way. Not violence or acquiescence to evil, but the hard and creative and healing path of peace and dignity for all. Pray, too, that God helps each of us to find how we can follow that path.
What is there to add five years later? Hopes, maybe, that I won't write the same thing in another five years. Hope that we won't still be at war in Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya. Hope we won't have invaded Iran or Syria. Hope that there is peace between Israel and Palestine. Hope that we'll each find our own ways to be, not just pray for, the peace of Christ.
Blessings,
Sara+
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