Reflection and Prayer
John Wilkinson Third
Presbyterian Church September 11, 2003
How shall we remember? It is a complex question, is it not?
How shall we remember?
Already this year, two years later, television is back to its
regular evening programming, among other normalcies. Perhaps
that’s as it should be.
And yet we live somewhere between the tension, do we not, of
living our lives as normally as we can and never forgetting?
It seems unlikely that we will forget anytime soon.
Whenever we turn the calendar’s page from December 6 to December
7, our psyches and spirits stop for a moment. Such will be the
case, I suspect for us, well into our history’s future.
Nor should we forget. Nor can we. Every time we stand in a
long line at airport security, or consider at all a neighbor
or co-worker or passer-by who appears to be of Arab descent,
we remember.
And we acknowledge simultaneously with our remembrance that
things have changed. Who did not think for at least an instant
that the August 14 “blackout” was somehow connected to these
things?
The world is a different place. Car bombs, daily reports of
soldiers dead. A new sense of global connection, stressed and
strained, and an evolving definition of what it means to be
an American, what patriotism suggests, the parameters of citizenship
and the expectations of civic life.
These are the things we are called to ponder every day, perhaps
in heightened ways since those horrific events now two years
ago.
One lesson became clear to me again over this summer, away
on vacation. The church to be visited was commemorating Labor
Day on that Sunday morning, and parishioners had been asked
to bring symbols of their vocation to be presented during worship.
A steady stream of items made its way to the chancel.
And then a distinguished looking gentlemen reached under his
pew and pulled out a fire helmet. A nearly audible gasp escaped
into the sanctuary from children, who thought the fire-fighting
helmet was very cool, and from adults, who thought it to be
very poignant.
It was both – cool and poignant, and a reminder of who we are
all called to be and what we are called to do for the common
good. That is why we continue to remember, because our common
humanity demands it. And it’s why we move on, because we have
things to do, people to love, jobs to perform. Remember and
hope.
Let us pray. What language shall we borrow, eternal God? What
language shall we borrow to remember, to express utter sadness?
What language shall we borrow to utter slim and soft whispers
of hope?
We remember, and continue to pray for, all those who died now
two years ago this day – in southeastern Pennsylvania, in Washington,
D.C., in the great city of New York.
We remember and pray for those whom they left – spouses and
partners and parents and children. Babies they would never meet.
Friends with whom they would never share that next cup of coffee.
A deep emptiness that even time will not fill, but that your
providence and mercy will begin to transform into some healing
journey.
We remember again heroism in the face of disaster, for life
given over to saving others. For every manner of public and
private servant whose sacrifice yet stands as silent testament
to the human spirit.
We pray for the world in which we live, and for which terrorism
continues as the bloody currency of human affairs. We pray for
our own President, and all those who advise him. Give President
Bush a keen and broadening vision of the world in which we live,
the right decisions to be made, the right forces to be summoned,
the right relationships to be forged.
Be with Secretary Annan, and all those who labor for peace
in our world. Be with leaders in every nation, including those
in Afghanistan, Iraq, the Middle East, North Korea, Liberia
– every place where the scourge of violence faces the people.
We pray for our children in special ways, loving God, for the
world now ever-changed into which they will grow. Give them
neither hardened hearts nor cynical ones, but rather open and
gracious spirits, that the world they inherit from us might
reflect your deepest desires for comity and reconciliation.
O God, you are the light of all who seek you, and you provide
illumination to the nations. As light radiates from this place
into our hearts and into all the world, so hear us now as in
silence we remember and seek hope…
Hear our prayer, made with full hearts, remembering at once
and looking to the far horizons when you will do a new thing
among us, and offered in the strong name of him whom we would
call even this day the Prince of Peace, sharing together his
words…Lord’s Prayer.
