Remembering

This week many of us are remembering just where we were ten years ago, September 11, 2001 when planes were hijacked and flown into the World Trade Center Towers and the Pentagon building. “Remembering” almost seems redundant. The memory of that day is indelibly etched in most of our minds.
I was a district superintendent in The United Methodist Church then, and part of the leadership for a retreat for the clergy of my district. We were at a camp in northern Minnesota (Northern Pines). That morning, one of the clergy, who was leading sessions on the Myers-Briggs Type Inventory, approached me to say that he had heard about some disturbing events taking place in New York. There was one television set in the lodge, and the reception was rather poor, but we gathered around the set and watched, shaken, saddened and stunned. The retreat ended after we watched for a time, each person returning to their community to be a presence for prayer and healing.
I also remember the time around September 11, 2002. I was driving across the southern Minnesota prairie listening to National Public Radio. Writer and poet Kelly Cherry was being interviewed about a piece she had written to be included in an anthology of writings about September 11. She read her piece, entitled “A Writer’s Pledge of Allegiance.” It was profoundly beautiful and moving, one of the best pieces I have heard or read following September 11, 2001. I cite portions below. The entire poem can be found in September 11, 2001 American Writers Respond, ed. William Heyen.

I believe one must speak and speak truly. I believe in the power of language to show, to move, to solve, to heal, to build…. What is unsaid can be said. What is said can be heard. What is heard can be sung. I believe that the music of humanity must and surely shall encompass everything…. For I believe nothing is beyond knowing. I believe nothing is beyond saying.

I believe this and am without words.

We need words. I, too, believe in the power of words, of language, to show, to move, to solve, to heal, to build. Yet there are moments in life – September 11, 2001 among them, when words cannot capture all that we are feeling, all that we are trying to understand and know. Language arises out of silence and should, at times, give way to silence. “Be still,” the Psalmist enjoins.
On this tenth anniversary of September 11, let there be some silence amidst all our words, and may the words we speak be words of healing, building and solving.

With Faith and With Feathers,

David