Meditation: a poem by Wendell Berry entitled “The Peace of Wild Things”
When despair for the world grows in me
and I wake in the night at the least sound
in fear of what my life and my children’s lives may be,
I go and lie down where the wood drake
rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds.
I come into the peace of wild things
who do not tax their lives with forethought
of grief. I come into the presence of still water.
And I feel above me the day-blind stars
waiting with their light. For a time
I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.
Reading: from a Buddhist story entitled “The Mustard Seed Medicine,” as retold by the Unitarian educator Sophia Fahs (From Long Ago and Many Lands, p. 156)
…A baby was born, a beautiful little boy, and [his mother] Kisa Gotami was completely happy. The days slipped by very fast as she watched her little son grow and learn. Almost before she knew it, he could run about and talk. She loved him more than anyone else in all the world. She loved him when he was obedient and when he was stubborn. She loved him when he laughed and when he cried.
But one day the little boy suddenly became very sick. Even though his mother and father did everything they knew how to do for him, the little boy did not get well. In a few days he died.
Kisa Gotami could not believe her little boy was really dead. She thought his sickness had only put him to sleep. Some kind of medicine would surely wake him up. So she wrapped the little body in its baby sheet and lifted it up in her arms. She carried it to her neighbor’s door.
“Please, my friend,” she begged, “give me some medicine that will cure my child.” But when her neighbor lifted the sheet and saw the baby’s face, she shook her head sadly. She knew there was no medicine that could cure him.
Reading: by Franklin Delano Roosevelt, 32rd President of the United States, Inaugural Address, March 4, 1933, when this country was struggling to recover from the Great Depression:
This is preeminently the time to speak the truth, the whole truth, frankly and boldly. Nor need we shrink from honestly facing conditions in our country today. This great Nation will endure as it has endured, will revive and will prosper. So, first of all, let me assert my firm belief that the only thing we have to fear is fear itself—nameless, unreasoning, unjustified terror which paralyzes needed efforts to convert retreat into advance. In every dark hour of our national life a leadership of frankness and vigor has met with that understanding and support of the people themselves which is essential to victory. I am convinced that you will again give that support to leadership in these critical days.
Fear Nothing But Fear Itself
A Sermon Delivered on September 11, 2011
By
The Reverend Axel H. Gehrmann
This morning in downtown Manhattan a memorial was dedicated, which is part of the National September 11 Memorial and Museum, on the site at which ten years ago the twin towers of the World Trade Center stood.
The memorial was designed by a young architect, a man of Israeli descent, named Michael Arad. Seven year’s ago, over five thousand artists and architects submitted proposals in the largest design competition ever. Arad’s design was the winner.
Maybe you have seen pictures of the memorial. Unlike many other memorial statues, walls, tombs or towers that command the attention of visitors, the September 11 Memorial is defined less by an object of observation, than by a thoughtfully constructed emptiness.
As Paul Goldberger describes it, “Early on, public officials made the sensible decision that, whatever happened at the site, nothing new would rise exactly where the Twin Towers had stood. Arad didn’t tiptoe around the footprint; instead, he made it the basis for a strong, almost minimalist design, turning the footprint of each tower into a square hole, with waterfalls running down the sides into a reflecting pool below. At the center of each reflecting pool is another, smaller square, into which water tumbles, as if it were flowing to the center of the earth. Arad figured out how to express the idea that what were once the largest solids in Manhattan are now a void, and he made the shape of this void into something monumental. The names of those who died are inscribed in inch-and-a-half-high letters cut into bronze panels that surround both pools. The lettering will appear dark during the day, and by night will glow, with lighting hidden below the panels.” (“Shaping the Void,” The New Yorker, September 12, 2011)
The memorial is brilliant in its stark and poignant simplicity. Its presence evokes absence. Arad says, he was hoping to make a “stoic, defiant and compassionate” statement. And from what I have seen and heard about the memorial, I think he succeeded.
The names of those who died in New York, Washington and Pennsylvania ten years ago are an important aspect of memorial. The names remind us that those were real people who died - not just faceless figures, counted up in news summaries: “2,996 deaths, including the 19 hijackers and 2,977 victims,” categorized according to country: “93 nationalities were represented among victims.”
These were real people. Someone’s father. Someone’s mother. Someone’s sister. Someone’s brother. Someone’s child. People as real as our own family members and friends. People as real as you and me.
* * *
When it comes to memory, specifics matter. Especially for those most directly affected by death, especially for those who suffer loss most profoundly.
An article in the News-Gazette last week reminded me how desperately we crave specific information when the life and death of a loved one is at stake. I was surprised to learn that while the ruins of the destruction from ten years ago have long been removed, and memorial services for the deceased have long passed - the effort to identify the remains of victims continues to this day.
Grieving families continue to long for closure and confirmation that their loved ones, whose bodies were never found, were actually victims. Thus in the course of the last ten years, tens of millions of dollars have been spent on the ongoing forensic examination of tiny traces of DNA salvaged from sites of disaster. Seven days a week a small group of scientists examines specimens in an ultra-modern lab on Manhattan’s east side. In the course of the last five years, these scientists were able to make only 25 new identifications. Over a thousand victims remain unidentified.
This effort says a lot about human nature. Burdened by grief, we long for specifics. Burdened by the fear so effectively evoked in acts of terror, we long for information, which will explain how and why events unfolded as they did.
According to the Wall Street Journal one in ten Americans knew someone who was hurt or killed in the attacks ten years ago. So it is not surprising that an enormous amount of information and commentary has been published about it. The New York Times website has an entire section devoted to it. It’s entitled “The Reckoning - America and the World a Decade After 9/11.” It includes countless photographs, articles, interviews, blogs and videos, which chronicle the day, the aftermath, first person accounts, international and Muslim perspectives, political and economic analyses, coverage about civil liberties restricted and military action expanded, and countless testimonies of grief and fear, of heroism and compassion.
I am sure we have each sampled a certain amount of the coverage and commentary available. I certainly have. And while on the one hand doing so leaves me feeling over-saturated with information, on the other hand I am left with an ever increasing sense of the countless aspects of September 11 that continue to elude me. The more I know, the more I know I don’t know.
And even as I am overwhelmed by the wealth of information easily accessible to me, I can’t help but wonder about information that is conspicuously absent, and much more difficult to find.
I wonder what stories will be told in the exhibits of the National September 11 Museum, scheduled to open next year. And I wonder what stories will remain untold. I wonder which of the events leading up to the terrorist attacks will be portrayed. Will we hear stories of colonialism and Cold War alliances, and a long history of troubling economic and military interventions? I wonder which of the consequences of 9/11 will be shared and which omitted.
* * *
As a nation, we have tried desperately to right the wrongs committed ten years ago. We have attempted to balance the scales justice, which were thrown out of whack by a brutal crime. Our efforts have been fueled by fear and grief. Thus it can be difficult to determine the appropriate proportion of our response. And while many consider the United States to be a Christian nation, the prophetic message of Jesus that calls us to love our enemy does not seem to have had much influence on our country’s chosen course.
Jesus envisioned a radical love, which superseded the ancient law of justice captured in the formula “an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth.” As Dr. King, quoting Gandhi, aptly said, “an eye for an eye leaves everyone blind.”
And yet in our collective response to the terror and grief of September 11, we have done far more than exact and eye for an eye. According to the New York Times, Al Qaeda spent roughly a half million dollars in the preparation and execution of their attacks. The U.S. response - war in Afghanistan and Iraq - has cost this country 3.3 trillion dollars - that’s one fifth of this nation’s debt. This is not a dollar for a dollar, a tooth for a tooth. But rather for each single dollar Al Qaeda spent to commit their crime, we spent 7 million dollars in response.
And in order to atone the deaths of almost 2,977 civilians on U.S. soil - according to United Nations figures - we have killed 137,000 civilians in Iraq and Afghanistan, and forced 7.8 million people to flee their homes as refugees.
This disproportionate response is evidence of a powerful nation consumed by fear and grief.
* * *
There are few experiences more devastating for the human psyche than grief and fear of loss. The magnitude of our grief and fear is in direct proportion to our capacity to love.
This is the lesson of the story of Kisa Gotami. Kisa Gotami’s grief is the grief any person suffers when someone deeply loved dies. Her grief, and her fear of losing her beloved child, drives her to hope against hope, that her child was merely sick, and can still be saved. She turns desperately to her neighbors, seeking a medicine that can heal her child. She knocks on every door, pleading for help.
The neighbors feel very sorry for her. But they see the child is beyond help. Among themselves they wonder whether Kisa Gotami has been driven mad by her grief. Finally Kisa Gotami is told to visit a wise teacher they called Buddha, and that perhaps he could help.
As the story goes, Buddha looks tenderly at the anxious mother. He knows the child is dead. He knows he cannot bring the dead to life again. But he also knows he can help the mother feel peaceful and comforted. So Buddha says to the woman, “You must help me find the medicine to cure your child. Bring me a handful of mustard seed… but the mustard seed must be from a house where no one has ever died or it will be of no use.”
Elated that a cure seems within reach, Kisa Gotami rushes to the door of her closest neighbor. The neighbor is happy to provide the mustard seed. But when Kisa Gotami asks whether anyone had ever died in their house - a father or mother or grandparent - the neighbor responds in surprise, “Have you forgotten that our dear grandfather died here less than a year ago?” She had forgotten. So she thanks her neighbor and quickly rushes on to the next house. There she has a similar exchange. The mustard seed is easy to find, but then she is reminded that this family’s son had died tragically ten years ago.
And so it goes, on and on. At last, tired and discouraged Kisa Gotami sits down under a tree outside the village. She slowly realizes that there is no medicine that can bring back her child, and she weeps bitterly for a long time. But slowly she grows calm, and slowly she realizes that she was not alone. Slowly she realized that though her beloved child is dead, and though she doesn’t know where he has gone or why, he had died like thousands of other people had died, also. As she herself would some day die, just as all people on earth must sometime die.
By reaching out to her neighbors, by learning of their losses, she is able to put her own sorrow within the context of a larger context of living and dying, a larger context of compassion, sympathy and love.
Yes, the memories of her son continue to mean a great deal to her. But rather than leading her to close her heart to the world around her, her memories inspire her to open her heart to her neighbors and their struggles. In this way, she re-discovers the wellspring of love and compassion in her own heart.
* * *
Helen Keller, the deaf and blind political activist, wrote, “We bereaved are not alone. We belong to the largest company in all the world - the company of those who have known suffering. When it seems that our sorrow it too great to be borne, let us think of the great family of the heavy-hearted into which our grief has given us entrance, and inevitably, we will feel about us their arms, their sympathy, their understanding.
Believe, when you are most unhappy, that there is something for you to do in the world. So long as you can sweeten another’s pain, life is not vain.”
* * *
The human power of love drives us to remember those dear to us we have known and lost. Mindful of both love and sorrow, we have a choice. We can either close our minds and hearts, remaining trapped within our own grief and fear. Or we can open up and reach out to others, seeking to understand their experience, sharing our lives, our sorrows and our joys, our knowledge of suffering and our capacity to love.
Religious faith teaches us to choose to second option. Our faith tells us to open our minds and hearts, to expand our circle of compassion, to reach out to those around us, so that we might be reminded of the humanity we share.
There is so much we don’t know about our neighbors. There is so much we could learn, if instead of bombing their homes, we would knock on their doors. There is so much we could gain if we ask them to tell us about the loved one they have lost. Their stories could disarm us all.
* * *
The most striking feature of the September 11 Memorial in New York City, is the void it evokes. What we see there should remind us of all we can’t see. The names we read there should remind us of all the names we can’t read. 2,977 names written in bronze should remind us of the 137,000 names that remain unwritten. The tragic stories we hear about victims on U.S. soil should remind us of the tragic stories we don’t hear about victims far away or close by. And even as we remember the tragic violence of one particular day ten years ago, we should remember the tragic violence that preceded it, and the tragic violence that followed.
It is spiral of violence driven by grief and fear. Grief and fear is what we easily see. My hope is that the memorial in Manhattan reminds us of what we too easily overlook: that the sting of our grief and fear is in direct proportion to depth of our love.
May we come to recognize the truth, that the only thing we have to fear is fear itself.
May we recognize the truth, that the path to peace is within our reach,
if only we have vision to see the love within and around us,
if only we have the courage to open our hearts.
Amen.
