A Remembrance

This month marked the twentieth anniversary of the terror attacks in New York, Washington, and over the skies of Pennsylvania. What I remember most is the initial report that a parishioner relayed to me before the gravity of what was happening was realized, an initial kind of nonchalance that a plane flew into a building. “A strange accident to have,” I thought. Then I recall the shock of a nation, the momentary non-partisan response of our legislators, and the horror of watching - over and over and over again - the planes impacting the buildings and the response at the Pentagon and the accounts of the passengers who defended the flight over Pennsylvania.

There is no adequate way to explain the abject hatred that infects peoples’ hearts, but we try anyway. In responding to that tragedy, I noted that being made in God’s likeness, we are like God in that we have the freedom to choose: among other things, the freedom to choose God or not-God. The terrorists chose not-God; chose to be evil. God was not there with the perpetrators. God was with those innocents who were massacred, in their fear and the anguish of family and friends. God was with those who so courageously responded and sacrificed. God is with those of us who remember and choose to respond to evil, not with fear or despair or returned hatred, but with the will to overcome these things with the power of God’s presence in community and in hearts and actions that render the effects of hatred impotent.

If you can say a good thing came of the attacks, I would say it was good that we had our illusions of safety shattered, for that is what they were: illusions. We thought we were safe, but we were not, are not, never have been, and never will be. It is good to not live in illusion but in truth. And the truth is, if evil exists (and it does), it is good that evil is brought into the light of God’s day so that we understand our inability to rely solely on ourselves, but in interdependence among one another and upon the One God who ultimately is the only true thing that exists anyway.

Marc