Remembering 9/11

 

I sit down to pray and I am flooded with tears and terror. I wipe away the tears saving one for the blessing, the blessing which gives me the faith and the strength to continue. I make the sign of the cross where the ashes would go and continue.

Continuing with fewer tears and less terror the memories are the flood. Like a deluge they come with no ark except the metaphoric ark built on God’s grace, love and sustenance. 

I think for a moment this is like the Eucharist often is, when we intentionally remember the suffering. Drop drop slow tears. The host is moistened.

Anamnesis, Greek for remembering. 

Some memories are still too painful. And some evoke response-ability. And most of the memories amaze me in their clarity and proximity. 

The sky was bright blue that day before smothered in ashes. 

I was not there but can taste and feel the ash because I remember from whence we came. 

At the time 20years ago the phrase Never Forget seemed like a fragile hope. It was not.

For memory has become the most courageous and faithful thing we can do. 

As the poet David Whyte says “ Memory is not just a then, recalled in a now, the past is never just the past, memory is a pulse passing through all created life, a wave form, a then continually becoming other thens, all the while creating a continual but almost untouchable now.” I persevere in remembering, at the Table and on my knees. It connects me to something alive and possible. Might the horrors of 9/11 be gathered up into a hope for now? 

The poet goes on to say “Memory is an invitation to the source of our life, to a fuller participation in the now, to a future about to happen, but ultimately to a frontier identity that holds them all at once. Memory makes the now fully inhabitable.”

I don’t know about the “fully” part but I will concede “more”.

The tears don’t cease but the prayer hasn’t either. May we all engage in the harsh potential of remembering. May we all feel the tether to the ultimate source of life which is always a divine invitation. 

God of Grace and Love and Mercy

Source of strength and salvation

Sustain us in our remembering

Comfort those who grieve

Embrace the victims in your eternal love

Bring peace to those who struggle with fear and anxiety

Give rest to the weary 

Bless the dying

Soothe the suffering

Comfort the afflicted

Hold us all 

This day and forevermore. AMEN