But the biggest thing I realized was how little actually changed because of 9/11/01. Certainly at the time it was cataclysmic. But with time it has fit into the broader sweep of human history. I had compared it to December 7, a truly pivotal day, and one that was every bit as emotionally life-changing for those who experienced it, but one which years tempered. It has remained momentous and significant, and it truly changed our nation and our behavior and taught us all sorts of things which remain with us yet. But I said in 2001 that 9/11 would also be tempered by time and go from being emotionally horrifying to part of our national (and international) experience to be learned from. By 2011 that was much clearer; 9/11 was a reference point, and like the families of the victims, we had adjusted to the different sense of reality. The losses had been reconciled in our minds and hearts, and we could move on with those events as part of our shared experience. Yes, 9/11 was a troubling indication of human evil. But also, we saw in 2001 and by 2011 that amazing depths of human compassion and concern and support emerged despite and because of the evil. Good was stronger. (Still is.)
Even by the newsletter column I wrote at McLean Community Church in September 2011, it was clear that not much ended up changing. We did not, as a nation, truly come together in a reliable, permanent sense. Injustice, evil, crime, racism, religious intolerance, selfishness and greed did not go away. Human nature did not improve. We are still the same compromised mixture of good and bad individually and collectively. We made national decisions that didn’t exactly show us at our best, and some of our decisions and actions made some things and some places worse. The wonderful hopes at the extraordinary New York City interfaith worship service came only partly true, and not all of our swords became plowshares but were used in anger.
And in the years since the horror of 9/11, we’ve seen a bunch more horrors. And we’ve coped with them. And we have seen a bunch more ways that the good in human beings surpasses the horrors.
In early 2012 I was at a conference for interims where one participant served a church who lost something like thirty members that day, and she gave me a very sharp sense of perspective of the grief and turmoil felt by the families and church and community. I remember my daughter calling to tell me that “they got bin Laden” in May 2011, because it was such a big thing to her. From her perspective, half of her life was spent looking for him. From my perspective, it was a fifth. I got another interesting piece of perspective because the McLean Community Church had a quilt square from Shanksville, PA in the display case at the back of the sanctuary, given to them in an exchange of squares among UCC women some years before. I found it eerie. But I also sensed an important “communion of saints” binding us to the church near where the fourth plane was crashed.
Perspective affects how we incorporate major events and psychological dislocations into our lives, our hearts, and our minds. We can have a limited, reflexive reaction that sees others as bad and to be defeated. We can go fatalistic and become defeated and passive. We can shrug things off and be indifferent. We can consider only how something, even great somethings, affect us personally and otherwise dismiss their significance to others. Perspective matters. But we can also step to a different place and gain different and new… and perhaps better… perspectives.
If we take any perspective beyond those that focus simply on our own well-being— our own financial or personal well-being, our body’s wellness and comfort, our immediate family and friends— to adopt any perspective which sees beyond our selves and beyond our own years— ones that look for the peace and justice and harmony and well-being of our communities and society and nation, that look at the community of the world, at global peace, at the well-being of our planet and environment for time to come, at generous distribution of resources to all humans, and, in our case, perspectives that place the divine at the center of our lives with all the other good perspectives radiating out from that— then we will have perspectives far better able to cope with all the troubling things we encounter.
The church’s perspective best comes from the assurance of Psalm 46, that God is our refuge and our strength, no matter what, even if the mountains shake and the seas roar and foam. God is our protector, our protector far beyond our understanding or our human notions of protection of our bodies, our lives, or even our souls. God is our protection and our hope. No matter what. At the end of the day, our perspective it that we are in God’s hands, and that is the best place to be.
In Christ,
David
Texts For Sunday Worship:
From the Hebrew Bible Exodus 14:19-31
From the Epistles Romans 14:1-12
From the Gospels Matthew 18:15-20
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