keep thou silence unto God:
for mine hope is in God.
Psalm 62:5
This is my reflection from two years ago with a few minor revisions.
The saga of un-creation in Jeremiah 4 feels like the reality of World Trade Center Ground Zero.
Jeremiah 4
11 At that time it will be said to this people and to Jerusalem: A hot wind comes from me out of the bare heights in the desert toward the daughter of my people, not to winnow or cleanse, 12 a wind too strong for that. Now it is I who speak in judgment against them.
22 "For my people are foolish; they do not know me; they are stupid children; they have no understanding. They are skilled in doing evil but do not know how to do good."
23 I looked on the earth, and it was complete chaos, and to the heavens, and they had no light.
24 I looked on the mountains, and they were quaking, and all the hills moved to and fro.
25 I looked, and there was no one at all, and all the birds of the air had fled.
26 I looked, and the fruitful land was a desert, and all its cities were laid in ruins before the Lord, before his fierce anger.
27 For thus says the Lord: The whole land shall be a desolation, yet I will not make a full end. 28 Because of this the earth shall mourn and the heavens above grow black, for I have spoken; I have purposed; I have not relented, nor will I turn back.
Twenty-Four Years
9/11/2001 + 24 = 2025
Where has the grief gone? Where have the memorial services gone? At least a few people on social media still ask where we were when we heard the news, although it's mostly for those of us who are so old we were chronologically mature adults in September 2001. We're still ready to revisit our experience, to retell the horror.
Monday evening 9/10/2001 I'd gotten back late from a seminar for the year-long Community Economic Development Certificate (mini-MBA in entrepreneurship) I'd just started at San Diego State. Tireder than usual, I'd gotten up an hour later than usual. By the time I turned on the morning news it had gone live. I watched the second plane hit the second tower.
And I can't ever forget the hope of two and a half days later.
Thursday evening September 13, 2001, my Presbyterian Church (USA), the large Evangelical Lutheran Church in America across the street and the smaller ELCA around the corner, a nearby Roman Catholic, that big United Methodist, and the United Church of Christ that bordered this neighborhood and the adjacent one gathered at the ELCA across the street and celebrated Eucharist. In the wake of unprecedented destruction on USA soil we offered thanksgiving! A glance into all creation healed and whole. A moment in the future God dreams of and calls us to help create.
Where were you? What words or communities or actions or realities sustained your hope? Still hold you in hope?
• Pentecost 14 Lectionary blog for Sunday, September 11, 2022 with more about God's presence, more on Jeremiah, and another retelling of when I saw the news. This coming Sunday September 14th will feature the same scriptures. As I mentioned about the counsel to preach the text and not the day, the appointed scripture often feels custom picked for the day in history or in our own local family, individual, ecclesiastical, or political lives.
I was on my way to file my paperwork for my Masters degree at UF. Listening in my car to the radio. Crying. Wondering.
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