twin towers

REMEMBERING SEPTEMBER 11th

9/1/11, 911, Altars, art, Attitudes, Christmas, Easter, Faith, Forgiveness, grief, Healing, hope, Icons, inspiration, Ministry, Painting, renewal, Spirituality

Looking up at the night sky, I think of the Eskimo Proverb which says, “ Perhaps they are not stars, but rather openings in Heaven where the love of our lost ones pours through and shines down upon us to let us know they are happy.” The fatal September 2001 event at 7:14 am CDT impressed its significance on the nation to such a great extent that 93% of American adults 30 years old or greater can tell you exactly where they were when they first heard about the attacks. Only 42% of those 25 and younger can do the same.

NGC 3603: From Beginning To End
Credit: Wolfgang Brandner (JPL/IPAC), Eva K. Grebel (U. Wash.), You-Hua Chu (UIUC), NASA

I remember my church was fuller than for Easter or Christmas on the Sunday after the devastation of the Twin Towers, the collapse of the Pentagon, and the crash of the airplane in which the terrorists had hoped to hit the White House. Only those brave passengers of Flight 93 stood between the terrorists achieving a psychological victory and their ultimate ignoble demise. As I recall, people were eager to hear “What is the Christian Response to Violence?” If they hoped to hear the one and only response, as the THE implies in the sermon title, the air was let out of their balloons.

A photo taken on September 11, 2001 by the New York City Police Department as the North Tower collapses, engulfing lower Manhattan in smoke and ash.

Of course, Christians across the centuries have had three major responses to violence. The first is “turning the other cheek” or nonviolence. We see this in the Biblical witness, for Jesus admonishes his followers in Matthew 5:38-42—

“You have heard that it was said, ‘An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.’ But I say to you, Do not resist an evildoer. But if anyone strikes you on the right cheek, turn the other also; and if anyone wants to sue you and take your coat, give your cloak as well; and if anyone forces you to go one mile, go also the second mile. Give to everyone who begs from you, and do not refuse anyone who wants to borrow from you.”

Il Tintoretto: Christ before Pilate, Museum Scuola di San Rocco, Venice

Jesus himself practiced a non-violence response to violence when he appeared before Pilate after his arrest. Pilate questioned Jesus in Matthew 27:11-14—

Now Jesus stood before the governor; and the governor asked him, “Are you the King of the Jews?” Jesus said, “You say so.” But when he was accused by the chief priests and elders, he did not answer. Then Pilate said to him, “Do you not hear how many accusations they make against you?” But he gave him no answer, not even to a single charge, so that the governor was greatly amazed.

Unknown German artist: Aquamanile in the Form of a Mounted Knight, Copper alloy, ca. 1250, used to pour water over hands at the altar or at dinner table, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York City.

The opposite of non-violence is the Crusade mindset. In this response, the infidel is “othered” to the point of inhumanity. Because the unbelievers don’t share the same god, purging them from the living is a good deed, worthy of merit for salvation or for forgiveness of past sins. As you can imagine, this makes people who believe in other gods “less than human,” so what we modern people would consider war crimes would be easy to commit for a person in Crusade mentality. We still hear vestiges of this dualist mindset in the vocabulary of people who talk about “weaponizing government” or those who feel the need to “hit the ground running.” If we’re always in “attack mode” at work, we need to question how we think about others if we believe we’re in a hostile environment or in enemy territory.

If the Christian has both a head and a heart, both of which are being conformed to the love, mercy, and justice of God, then we must have a middle way between passive nonviolence and crusade extremism. This golden mean is the Just War Theory. It’s taught in all our military academies and has its beginnings in Christian theology. The saints Augustine of Hippo and Thomas Aquinas developed the primary ideas:

  • Make war only for a just cause
  • Be sure your intentions are right
  • Only legitimate authority can make war
  • Use just proportionally in the war, nothing to excess
  • Go to war as a last resort 
  • During war only attack military targets, not civilians 
  • Following unjust orders isn’t a legal defense for unjust actions 
  • Punish war crimes, compensate victims
  • Peace treaties must be fair and just to all, even the warmongers
Psalter Saint Louis et Blanche de Castile, MS 1186, BnF, folio 11b

Those of us who struggle with conflict—if we have a family, we have conflict or if we live in a community, we have conflict—yes, I’m starting to meddle now. You knew I’d get around to it. After all, God the Father had Adam and Eve, and God tossed those two kids out of the House. They had everything, and still wouldn’t follow the one rule (Don’t eat from that one tree). Just one rule. How hard could that be? It was downhill from there.

I always take comfort, knowing God had troublesome children. It means perfect parents can still have conflict at home. This gives hope to us less than perfect folks. The Bible reminds us always how God still loves the human race and hasn’t give up on us, so we don’t give up on those we have fusses with. We don’t roll over and play dead, yet we don’t set out on a crusade against unruly kids or others with whom we have conflicts. As Micah 7:18 reminds us about God’s Compassion and Steadfast Love:

Who is a God like you, pardoning iniquity and passing over the transgression of the remnant of your possession? He does not retain his anger forever, because he delights in showing clemency.

Remnant of the Twin Towers

Maybe we should look at the just war thoughts and modify our attitudes and behaviors. We can come to a peace, even if others cannot. As Jesus says in Matthew 5:9—

“Blessed are the peacemakers,

for they will be called children of God.”

 

Joy and Peace,

Cornelia

 

Two Decades Later, the Enduring Legacy of 9/11 | Pew Research Center

Two Decades Later, the Enduring Legacy of 9/11

 

Just War Theory – The Ethics Centre Ethics Explainer
https://ethics.org.au/ethics-explainer-just-war/

 

The Last Tower

9/1/11, Family, Fear, generosity, Health, home, knitting, quilting, Strength, Work

Today is the first day of September: my how time flies when you’re having fun! Twelve years have passed since Mom died, and nearly fifty since she made me that cheerful zigzag afghan to take off to my freshman year in college. That flag pillow was our last project together. “I want to make everyone patriotic pillows for Christmas,” she said the year after the twin towers came down. I didn’t know at the time that the last tower in our family was going to fall.

When my Mother said “I want to make,” she really meant “and you must help me do this, of course.”
Patchwork means that many small pieces are sewed together to make a larger whole. The secret to a good outcome is to cut your shapes all true to the pattern: same size, angles, lengths, widths, and heights. If your stripes are all rectangles, when they are sewn together they will make a larger rectangle. If however, you have cut trapezoidal shapes, your finished product doesn’t look like an American flag.

“What’s taking so long?” She says to me, “You ought to have several sewn up by now.” Yes, Mother, I explain, but I’m having to select strips for size, flip them so the big end is next to a little end, adjust the seam sizes along the run, and then sew. You DO want this to be a rectangle when we are done?

I won’t even begin to tell you the discussion we had on how much fabric to purchase. Mom always wanted to purchase just enough, whereas I have Dad’s cautious streak and say, What if we mess up a portion or we decide to make a pillow for someone else? They may not have this fabric in stock again. She was a child of the Great Depression, and not wasting anything was a lesson learned in hard times. We never finished the pillows that year, for she died of pancreatic cancer before that September had run its course.

When I need a bit of comforting after a hard day, I can wrap up in this old hand knit afghan and sit on my couch with a soothing cup of tea and feel the presence of my Mom and Dad. I can see her knitting this afghan while sitting in the den at night watching television with Daddy. They had matching chairs with a table and lamp between them. They would talk about their day, talk about the world, talk about us kids, and talk about their hopes and dreams for us and for themselves.

I have tried replacing this screaming yellow, orange, gold and brown memory from the 60’s with a more decorative or color coordinated throw, but all I do is waste money: these new ones may look better, but they don’t comfort or warm me. Perhaps the accumulated memories of this ancient afghan have their own energy, their own power source, or their own spiritual connection to the last tower of my family. It has become a holy place where I can seek solace and peace, communion with the saints, and the presence of the God who creates all things and brings the off kilter into harmony with the whole.

For me, God doesn’t dwell only in a “high and holy place,” but “also with those who are contrite and humble in spirit, to revive the spirit of the humble, and to revive the heart of the contrite” (Isaiah 57:15).

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