"Blessed be the LORD! For he has shown me the wonders of his love in a besieged city" (Psalm 31:21).
On September 11, 2001, I was living and working in the Washington DC area. I, my wife and son lived about two miles from the Pentagon, and just a few more miles from the Potomac river. I worked about 20 miles further south in Virginia, just off of I-495, the "Beltway." After following the news of the attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon, and talking to my wife at home in Alexandria, I decided to go home, so that we could comfort each other, and pray.
I started driving down 495, looking for the exit for I-395, which went directly toward Washington. But as I got closer to the exit, the traffic slowed to a crawl. And I realized that 395 North had been closed. As I crawled on the overpass above 395, I saw police cars across the highway, and was struck to see not a single automobile headed toward the nation's capital. At that moment, it hit me that we living in a besieged city.
I think that as a people, as a nation, we have been living in a besieged city for the past 12 years. Coming one year after the death of four Americans in Libya, that siege is physical, as there remain people whose hatred of us as Americans is so intense that they will go to any length to harm any of us they can. Yet, there is also a siege that I believe has been going on within our hearts. We have been besieged by our fears, some real, some perhaps not so real. We have been besieged by the awful memories that we can't help but watch every year on the anniversary. And in the onslaught of those memories we have been besieged by the temptation to bitterness.
This morning I turned on the news, and saw the replay of real time news coverage on that day 12 years ago. And I turned it off. I looked for prayers and readings that might fit a remembrance of the day at our evening Mass, and found what I was looking for, thanks to the Episcopal Diocese of New York. Then I went to to the neighborhood coffeehouse, and prayed that in the words of the psalm appointed for this anniversary, I might find the wonders of God's love in a besieged city. And behold, a parishioner walked into that same coffeehouse with his son, whom I hadn't met yet. We enjoyed each other's fellowship, and I made a new friend. Blessed be The Lord.
Tonight, I asked those at Mass to go forth and look for the wonders of God's love rather than reasons to fear and become embittered. And then we were present at the re-presentation of His sacrifice, the one who faced the hatred l and his fears; and with his last breath, quoted the same Psalm 31: "Into your hands, O LORD, I commend my spirit" (Psalm 31:5). Let us commend our fears, our hopes, and our loves, to the one who died, and lives, and in whom we need not fear death, for ever and ever.
No comments:
Post a Comment