"Come, come whoever you are.
Wanderer, worshipper, lover of leaving, come.
Come, though you have broken your vow a thousand times.
Ours is not a caravan of despair.
Come, yet again, come."[1]
I chose the words deliberately. They are from Rumi, the 13th century Sufi Muslim poet. Ours must not be a caravan of despair. We have lived through an awful week - the unspeakable murder of thousands of our citizens at the World Trade Center and the Pentagon and in the hills of Pennsylvania. And all out of a clear blue sky - shattering the calm of a late-summer Tuesday morning. It was surreal watching replays of those two planes hitting the same twin towers which I had seen from an airplane not three weeks before. It was like a grade B disaster film with Arnold Swartzenegger or Sylvester Stallone. Except this time it was real people dying and real buildings being reduced to rubble.
Joyce phoned our son, who lives in Manhattan - the central part. The catastrophe was news to him. He went to watch the unfolding drama on TV with a neighbor, and then they went to give blood. This weekend he is a volunteer driver for the Red Cross. We get first hand reports every night.
Last night he called to tell us he had driven to ground zero and was stunned by the devastation - the World Trade Center, a building that was supposed to last 10,000 years, shaped into a 5-story sculpture. He was moved at the picture gallery on the walls in the center where families waited - probably in vain - to hear of loved ones. New York, he says, is very quiet.
Tuesday night we had a spontaneous vigil here in our Sanctuary. We sat and talked quietly and sadly. Wednesday I called some Muslim friends to offer concern and support as they braced to endure the hostility Muslims endured after the Oklahoma City bombings - when so-called "Islamic fundamentalists" were immediately said to be the culprits.
Thursday night I went to a community forum at Nazareth College. There religious leaders wrestled with the meaning of this inexplicable tragedy. I was moved by a Muslim woman who did not dare send her children to school for fear of harassment or violence. Imam Mohammed Shafiq of the Islamic Center, with whom I have often worked, has received insults and threats. A man who called from Canandaigua illustrated perfectly the bias against Arab and Muslim Americans when he chastised them for their "jihad" which had caused these attacks and admonished them to repair their religious "defaults." I bristled. Another Muslim speaker responded that Islam means peace by surrender to Allah's will, and that Jihad means "striving" to do good and resist evil and is not a simple equivalent to "holy war."
A Muslim professor reported he had been interviewed by Channel 13 and made the point that Islam means peace. A friend told him his interview was placed side by side in a split screen with pictures of Palestinian children making a "V" sign for victory in celebration of Tuesday's attacks. He protested what he called media bias. I could feel his anger.
I asked the panel for their reaction to what I could only call a "rhetoric of war" with the president's talk of "victory." Was this not preparing the American people for a dramatic increase in military spending and a massive retaliatory strike which might well miss the perpetrators of this heinous act and simply destroy more innocent people? A local political science professor was a little more sanguine about our national response than I, but Roman Catholic Bishop Matthew Clark was equally concerned about the militant rhetoric from our leaders.
On Friday I tried to call my ministerial colleagues in New York City just to let them know we were thinking about them and their people. I got through to only one - who had not lost any parishioners in the disaster. He told me he was to have a wedding rehearsal at the top of the world Trade Center that night. We hear stories of people across the nation have reported near misses by friends or loved ones who barely escaped injury or death. The son of friends was on the 77th floor when the planes hit, ran down an unused stairway and lived to tell the tale. The daughter of a member was very near ground zero but is safe and sound. There but for the grace of God go I.
Also on Friday we had a most moving experience. Having heard President Bush's call for a National Day of Mourning and Prayer, I decided we had to respond. We faxed notices to a few media outlets and began to prepare a service. I expected a handful of people and was stunned by nearly 200 - many of them not from this church - some our Jewish neighbors at Temple Beth El across the street. When I arrived a volunteer pianist from our congregation was at the keyboard; another noticed a bare credenza and brought in our American flag. We sang "America the Beautiful" and "A Song of Peace."
After readings and meditation, we opened the microphone, and for forty-five minutes heard here echoes of a grieving nation, admiration for the courage of New York City's people and pride that the nation was united as never before. There were tears and hugs and words of appreciation from people who simply needed to be together in this time of crisis.
Saturday I spoke at a Rally for Restraint at the Liberty Pole downtown. I said we have been assaulted; thousands of our people have been brutally killed; New York City has been devastated; the Pentagon walls have been breached; the American people are angry; we are angry.
We grieve with those who have lost friends and loved ones; we pray for the safety of those unaccounted for; we praise the courage of the rescue workers who have risked and often sacrificed their lives trying to save life; we praise the officials and the volunteers who have committed themselves to recovery from this horrific tragedy.
But this was a rally for restraint in our response to this attack. There is a universal feeling of helplessness as the world's great superpower is devastated by this laser-like strike at our commercial and military underbelly. No missile shield could have prevented this attack. We have perhaps outgrown our innocence that we are uniquely blessed among the world's nations. I fear the war rhetoric that grows out of this frustration that with all our might we cannot protect ourselves from those who hate us. This frustration and rage are exceedingly dangerous. Patriotism that unites us in mourning our fallen citizens, in supporting relief efforts, in pulling together, is good; but patriotism that justifies massive and relentless vengeful acts against unknown perpetrators of evil is a form of jingoism I must resist.
I heard a man interviewed just after the attack on the World Trade Center. "Let's just go bomb the hell out of them!" he shouted. But who is "them"? Another man said, ""I would support a complete slaughter. All I can say is God bless America. Where do I sign up?" That kind of rhetoric scares me. Let us not rush to judgment, rush to vengeance, rush to retaliation. Sadly, a substantial portion of Americans seem ready to do just that, echoing President Bush who said the U.S. "will make no distinction between the terrorists who committed these acts and those who harbor them."[2] But random revenge, swift and violent retaliation, may well result in a new spiral of violence like that between Israelis and Palestinians in the Middle East. Terrorism is like a hydra-headed monster - cut off one head and two take its place.
It is natural to be angry. Innocent life has been taken - senselessly. Our national leaders are planning our response. I fear it will be a violent one - that yet more innocent people will die - senselessly. There are international rules of conduct to bring the violent to justice. Slobodan Milosevic is now being tried as a war criminal by an international court. I pray that we will follow those rules and will not ourselves become a rogue nation - acting out of anger and vengeance - taking justice into our own hands. Let us do our part to end this dance of death. Let us seek to bring the perpetrators of this crime to justice, yes; but let us rally around the banner of restraint.
In the words of Mahatma Ghandi, "An ethic of 'an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth' will leave the world both blind and toothless."
I'm still coming to grips with the enormity of what has happened. I think of the hundreds, if not thousands, of families shattered by the loss of loved ones. I weep to hear of telephone calls from doomed aircraft to family members with a last good-bye just before inevitable and tragic death. I think of the police and firefighters buried in the collapsing World Trade Towers as they sought to rescue others. The depth of the suffering is almost beyond comprehension or expression.
My view of human nature as essentially good has once again been challenged. How could human beings deliberately wreak such havoc and cause indiscriminate death? As I study terrorism, I learn that just as there is honor among thieves, there are values in terrorists as they seek to send a message to us. But what is that message? Some believe it is a violent reaction to American culture which, like a colossus, stands astride the world. Others believe it is a reaction to our policy in the Middle East. The point is we know so little about Osama bin Laden, about Islam, about the Arab world, about Afghanistan - so little about the rest of the world as we enjoy life in our own cocoon. Our naivety has this week been shattered.
I have been heartened this week by expressions of support from around the world. We have heard from friends and fellow religionists in Thailand, Hungary, Transylvania and the Czech Republic. From Arpad Szabo, Bishop of the Transylvanian Church, comes these words: "We never thought that we would have to live up this day. During the almost 200 years of our relationship and cooperation, it was always you, citizens of the free and safe America, that intervened for us when nationalist or communist forces attempted to destroy the very existence of our Unitarian communities." Now they can minister to us as we have tried to minister to them. It is an interdependent world.
We have, by the miracle of e-mail, heard reports from other congregations as they come to terms with the tragedy - from Unitarian Universalist musicians as they try to express grief and courage in music - as they minister to congregations in music - for understanding may be beyond words. This sense of the interdependent web of existence is real. We are part of something far beyond these walls.
And so, what should we do? We need to maintain faith in the human journey on that caravan of hope for the future. We cannot afford to allow a few misguided, cruel zealots to destroy our resolve to be human beings who love peace and seek justice. That would grant them a victory they do not deserve. In a very real sense, living well is the best revenge. We must not become like them. There must be religious witness.
We need to reach our hands and hearts out to those who have been directly affected by this horror. We may know people who have lost loved one or even those who are deeply hurt by what they have seen and heard. We can give our blood and treasure - quite literally - in relief efforts. There must be religious witness.
We can reach out, especially to our Arab-American and American Muslim neighbors who are the targets of so much harassment and violence. No group can be blamed for what a few individuals have done - and as of now we do not yet know the culprits. There must be religious witness.
We need to speak out against the Jerry Falwells and the Pat Robertsons who count this calamity as God's punishment for evil-doing in American. They blame pagans, abortionists, feminists, gays and lesbians, the ACLU, People for the American Way - all those whom they say have tried to secularize America - for Tuesday's tragedy. "I point the finger in their face and say, 'You helped this happen.'" Robertson nodded agreement.[3] This inflammatory and preposterous rhetoric cannot be allowed to stand unchallenged. There must be religious witness.
We can encourage our governmental leaders to use restraint in their response - refuse to give in to the passions of the moment; resist political pressures for swift and massive retaliation which may kill the innocent; seek to understand the meaning behind terrorism; and so refocus our energies on peace-making in those troubled parts of the world from which they come. There must be religious witness.
It has been difficult knowing what to do this week. I have suffered from survivor guilt - not being personally affected by this unparalleled tragedy. One of our church families lost a nephew this week. There may be others of whom I do not know.
I believe we must learn to live in that creative tension between wanting to go on with our daily routines - and stopping that work to be absorbed by the tragedy of the moment. We cannot afford either to be oblivious to Tuesday's tragedy or to be obsessed with it. We don't know what message the terrorists meant to send, but if they wished to distract us from the business of democracy, they were wrong, and we need to prove them wrong. And so, humbled, properly chastened by violence, sobered by reality, let us move on. There must be religious witness.
And so, when the injured have been treated;
When the dead have been buried;
When the rubble is cleared away;
When the anger has been vented;
When the horror has been processed;
The work of the world continues:
To heal the sick;
To comfort the afflicted;
To rebuild the cities;
To restore our zest for living and loving;
To seek justice and peace in an imperfect world.
W. H. Auden gives us hope in a poem he wrote on the brink of World War II, "September 1, 1939."
"Defenseless under the night
Our world in stupor lies;
Yet dotted everywhere,
Ironic points of light
Flash out wherever the Just
Exchange their messages:
May I, composed like them
Of Eros and of dust,
Beleaguered by the same
Negation and despair,
Show an affirming flame."
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