"Hope Amid Havoc"
A response to the terrorist attacks on our country

The Reverend Samuel Schaal
September 16, 2001

We are feeling many things right now. We are tired. We are afraid. We are angry. We are confused. We are worried.

It has been a tough week. Soon after awakening on Tuesday morning, the world changed forever and most of us watched it on television. The spectacle was incredible. It was like - and I have heard many people say this - it was like a movie, only this wasn't a Hollywood set, it was real.

The church has been active since then. About 60 of us gathered Tuesday night for a vigil. I offered some readings, we shared feelings of fears and hopes, I led a prayer. On Thursday night about 10 or 12 of us gathered with several hundred other neighborhood residents at St. John Vianney church for an ecumenical service. I offered a prayer for peace and tolerance. It was at that gathering that I learned the next day had been designated a National Day of Prayer and that night I put a message out on the list serve that on Friday, at noontime as well as throughout the day, the sanctuary would be open for private meditation and prayer.

When I got in the office on Friday our administrator reported she had had many calls, many apparently from the public, just wanting to know if we were having some kind of service. So at 10:30 a.m. I began putting together a simple service of readings. Pat Rierson was in the building and she helped design the chancel table. Marje Gluckstein showed up shortly with music in her arms asking if she could play in case we were having a service. It was, according to one church member, a Unitarian miracle. More about the Friday noon service in a moment.

We are feeling many things right now and we've been feeling many things all week and if you are like me you are tired of feeling all this and have perhaps become a bit numb.

What meaning to make from all this?

What has happened is outside most of our meaning systems - thousands killed, of every race and ethnicity, for no publicly claimed purpose, for no discernible reason, other than its impact - mass murder as a spectacle.

If our faith is a true faith it should have something to say to this situation. If our faith is more than a mere conglomeration of what each of us believes anyway, we are called upon to bring the wisdom of our tradition to bear to this most remarkable and grievous of situations.

What to make of what happened on Tuesday September 11, 2001?

Our first response to such incredible tragedy, once we realize what has happened, we have a need to discern why it has happened. So we first frame the issue according to what we know. We sometimes frame the situation politically. Over this week, from people here in the church as well as those beyond our church, I have heard a number of theories on probable causes of this tragedy.

One is that Former President Clinton let our military decline and so left our nation vulnerable. Another is that President Bush has thumbed his nose at various international concerns, so it's not surprising we have enemies, that we have helped bring this upon ourselves. One said the problem started back with former President Carter when he initiated CIA reforms that has hamstrung anti-terrorist activity ever since. I also heard - this was from a church member, by the way - that it's good that we have President Bush in the White House because the Republican Party is better at times of international distress.

All these varied opinions rest on one's political assumptions, how one understands the world politically and culturally, the frame one uses to interpret world events. We are undergoing trauma and stress. It is a common reaction to stress that we frame things in ways which make sense to us; it's a way to process the pain and avoid the incredible pain of such a senseless act. I understand, or try to understand, this pastorally, and I have my own set of political and cultural assumptions which helps me understand this situation for myself.

I think, however, it is a mistake to take religious comfort in our cultural and political assumptions. All of these various scenarios may contain a partial truth, but none contain the whole truth.

And perhaps I am stating the obvious, but regardless of how you frame your politics, surely these countless thousands in no way deserved to die.

We have been the victim. This is something new to us. We just aren't used to being victims. We are used to being in control. In fact, perhaps we in this religious tradition are used to being in control and perhaps we are having the hardest time of the faith groups in bringing meaning to this if we frame our meaning by how much control we have of our lives.

What is our religious response? Where in this situation is hope? Where is the holy?

It is said we are living in a new age now. And that's probably true. How this new age will take shape is not immediately clear. If it is a war we are engaged in, and it seems it is a war, it is a different kind of war. There have been many comparisons to Pearl Harbor, but the analogy fails when you consider who the enemy is, for the enemy is still not very clear. The enemy is diffused.

There is concern among us right now about militarization. It seems to me that we have to respond, or the terrorists will have won.

Dr. Forrest Church at All Souls Unitarian Church in New York City, in a service on Wednesday night of about 800 people gathered, told his flock that "Good people here in America and around the world must join in a common crusade against a common enemy." He said we must fight back and that nations which harbor these terrorists must be held accountable. To not do that is to let the terrorists win. He also suggested that we do so maturely.

Surely whatever we do as a nation must be done soberly, thoughtfully and with forbearance. Surely in resisting the spread of terrorism we can do it without a spirit of revenge. We are concerned that personal freedom remain intact insofar as possible. We are concerned that there not be intolerance against Arab Americans or Muslims.

In this community of faith as in our other communities of faith, let us remember that we will be of varied opinions about these matters. Let us engage each other lovingly and respectfully and know that there is no one correct answer to these very complex and demanding times.

It strikes me that the situation gives us in this congregation as in our other churches, perhaps, an opportunity. I turn again to our Friday noon service.

We had set a couple of rows of chairs in a circle in front of the chancel table, creating a more intimate space in our rather large sanctuary. As I sat and led the impromptu service, I realized that I didn't know most of the people sitting there. About 2/3 .... Or at least half of the people ... were not from this congregation. They had just wandered in, looking for a place to reflect, pray and meditate.

I offered remarks, read readings, invited them to light candles of concern, invited them to sit as long as they wanted to. Slowly, they left, through the doors of the meeting room and then through the front doors of the building. They left to resume their lives outside this community of faith.

Who were these people? I don't know. They were young couples mainly, in their 20s and 30s. They were people who wanted a house of worship. And they choose this congregation.

I realized that this may have signaled a real shift in the culture and how we relate to that culture. We see ourselves as radicals, as unwelcome in this part of town, as a church of liberals in a conservative community. That dichotomy has been described to me many times since I arrived a year ago. The history of Elm Grove not welcoming us in the early 1960s has made us feel like spiritual orphans. There were the great social causes of the 1960s and 1970s some of which we fought valiantly for. We are not used to people coming to the doors of the church wanting just to worship and pray and make sense of the world. This is something new. Perhaps in this new age of anxiety, as we prepare the way for a world we don't yet understand, we could help create a new age of spiritual grounding.

I am reminded of the 1950s movie "War of the Worlds," based on the H.G. Wells book. Toward the end of the movie, nothing has stopped the strange Martians and their weaponry. The best American artillery is useless. Cities are lieing in ruins and finally people storm into churches and synagogues and temples to pray. A nation turns to God.

Well, in the final reel the Martian ships, one by one until the whole fleet is done in, simply collapse. They later discover that the Martians fell victim to a virus (I think it was) or something in the atmosphere. The incubation period of the disease is remarkably the same as the length of the movie. But the message of the movie in part was that once people turned to transcendence, to the greater good, to things which are of eternal and ultimate value (that is, God) they conquered their enemy.

The movie is perhaps silly. We surely have made fun of that and other movies of the same theme. But last Friday Americans sought out spiritual communities, including this one. This presents challenges and opportunities to us.

For now, where is hope in this situation? Where is the holy? Where is God in all this?

Jewish theologian Martin Buber tells the old story of the Rabbi whose grandson was once playing hide and seek with his friend. He hid himself well and waited for his playmate to find him. After waiting a long time, he emerged from his hiding place to discover that his friend had gone home. The boy realized that his friend had never bothered to look for him and he cried to his grandfather over his friend's faithlessness. The rabbi cried as well. "Even God cries," said the rabbi. "God says, 'I hide and no one wants to find me.'"

Perhaps God is hiding from us now. I think it's important that we continue to seek meaning, even meaning that is hard to find, and not go home because we can't find it quickly.

In a way, God - the good, the ultimate, that which is of eternal meaning - God is hidden in the rubble of the World Trade Center and Pentagon. It is difficult to find meaning in this situation.

But in another way, perhaps God is all over the place. God is walking around New York City and Washington, D.C., this time a fireman who risks his life to save others, that time a group of passengers who apparently struggled with the hijackers to crash the plane before it hit Camp David, here a medical worker who works tirelessly, there a group of children standing on the corner of North Avenue waving a flag and holding a sign that says "We Are United." God is everywhere, God is here in this room as we hold each other through this tragedy. You may not believe in God, and yet you may be God for someone else, or someone has been God for you. And maybe this is how we find holiness among the common.

Where is hope? Where is God in all this?

Certainly, if this last week is any indication, the American people will recover and rebuild. Not only our buildings of the World Trade Center and Pentagon, but our spirits. There is a new spirit in our land, a new unity. This will pass undoubtedly, as we recover from this trauma. In the world of politics, we can expect to see political strategy re-enter the arena as it must for that is how our system operates, but it is interesting to me to see how this is unifying us.

It feels like to me what it must have felt like during the Second World War. My own mother, in Waukesha now, she minimized all this. "It's nothing," she said. "We'll do it again," she said, referring to our victory in World War II.

Of course, the stakes are perhaps different now, the war, if a war it is, is different, but perhaps the spirit of the American people is not so different. And it's not just the spirit of the American people, it's the human spirit. Other nations have come to our support. Perhaps this is our chance to be the Greatest Generation.

In the meantime we have grieving to do. Remember the advice of Rumi: you know the holy by grieving. "The grief you cry out draws you to union." This is what the 20th century Unitarian minister A. Powell Davies said in the text I used as a call to worship: "Let the heart be stretched by (pain) ... This can lead to a deepening of meaning, to dedication, to a going forward."

There is hope. They can't kill hope.

They can take down a skyscraper or two for by necessity skyscrapers have to be built firm and tough to stand tall. But we are not like skyscrapers. We are like the young tree, flexible as it bends to the winds and forces upon it. The sapling is resilient. So are we. So is our nation. In the history of the world our nation is really just a young sapling, still learning, still growing.

We will recover.

Amen.

Prayer

We gather here today in one of the darkest hours in our nation's history. As we sit and become receptive, as we get comfortable in our chairs, we hear these familiar words: Oh spirit that is with us when we gather in this place. Oh God of many names and God beyond our naming. Today we name you as hope.

Our hearts are full today. Full of sadness. Full of fear. Full of grief and pain. Full of yearning for world peace.

We pray for those lost in this tragedy: the countless individuals from all walks of life, engaged in the common and noble tasks of work and commerce who met such a violent end. May their families find peace as they begin the journey of grief and healing.

We pray for those rescue workers and volunteers who exhibited such incredible selfless bravery, those who lost their lives in an attempt to rescue others. Their bravery will not soon be forgotten and we remember all those who live lives of service to others.

We pray for all the citizens of New York City and Washington, D.C., who are so close to the carnage. We pray for our sisters and brothers in the free churches of those cities. We ask an especially blessing for the ministries of the Revs. Scott Wells and Rob Hardies of Washington, D.C. and the Revs. Bruce Southworth and Fred Wooden and the Rev. Dr. Forrest Church, all of New York City. May they have strengths and tenacity as they minister to the hurting and grieving in their congregations.

We pray for our national leaders and for our president George W. Bush. Grant them wisdom and forbearance to face these days. We pray for this nation and all its people. May we not rush into the heat of war. May we seek justice, not retribution - justice, not revenge. Grant us tolerance. May we be slow to judge, slow to anger. May we remember that all humanity shares a common destiny, a destiny that surpasses ideologies, politics, tribalisms and other things that divide us.

Grant us, beyond all things, hope. As we rebuild our nation and our spirits may we be redeemed and liberated from all that trivializes, profanes and separates us from others ... and from the source and sustenance of our lives.

Today we pray for those in this community touched by the tragedy. We remember Melissa Harrington, and her aunt and uncle, Pat and Dave Rierson. May they know of the far-reaching bonds of love in this community and may they feel enveloped by your spirit.

With the many meditations of our private hearts, we enter the silence together.

And so we pray in the name of all that is holy. Amen.