9/16/01
Sunday reflections
Dear all,
Another day that the sun has risen. Another day of disbelief. Another day
that reality slowly sets in.
The weather here in New York could not be more beautiful. The stark contrast
to recent events is remarkable. It proves somehow the relative smallness of
all we are experiencing in the bigger picture. Until this week, we've known
of warfare on our soil. We've been sheltered from so much of what the world
sees.
Saturday, I tried to conduct some of what one might call a normal day. There
was even one moment, for about 15 seconds, that I had forgotten about the
disaster. I've been reaching out to friends and relatives around the world,
making contact, reassuring and comforting--them and me. The police opened
lower Manhattan all the way to Battery Park (the southern most tip of
Manhattan). I went down to witness what I could. Before I left the subway
station, I donned my mask. The smells of the disaster are turning more
putrid as days go on. Outside, it was a ghost town. Covered by a thick layer
of dust, the stores and buildings were being hosed off one-by-one. Hundreds
of workers tirelessly moved (albeit slowly after four days of constant,
desperate work) doing their various jobs. There are so many different things
that have to be done to put the city back on-line for Monday's opening. A
few shops were open, mostly food shops.
People, like myself, came to witness, to pay our respects, to come to terms
with this reality. There was only one brief view of ground zero, from the
subway exit--a couple of blocks away. Through the smoke we could see the
rubble and workers. The police, working to keep the crowd moving, were
sympathetic to all who came and had to see. They kept doing their job, but
there was a kindness to their instructions to keep moving. Along the walk to
Battery Park, there was light on buildings that had formerly been in
shadows. As I looked up at the skyscrapers, I was looking up 40, 50, 60
stories. I was taken aback by the knowledge that the planes that struck the
WTC hit higher on those buildings than these skyscrapers, that so dwarfed us
pedestrians, stood.
Then I thought about how remarkable that those huge structures collapsed
straight down. My mind reeled at what would have happened had they toppled.
As I have learned, the structure of those towers was strongest at the outer
walls. Where most buildings are structurally built with their cores as the
strength, WTC were built from the outside in. As a result, when the
buildings collapsed, they dropped straight down--so straight that the 300
foot high antenna atop building one fell straight down and remained
standing. It leans now to one side and the firefighters raised a flag on it,
one of the symbols of this ordeal.
I was struck also by the first wave of "survivor guilt." Those of us who
have not suffered so directly from this tragedy, have a strange sense of
what it means to have survived without a scratch--especially those whose
stories about why they were late, or took a day off, or missed the plane.
It's irrational. But then almost everything that's happening is irrational.
Some people who live in Battery Park were allowed back to their apartments
to collect possessions and pets. They went to buildings that had no
electricity, and so, had to climb the darkened stairwells to their
apartments to collect a suitcase, a grocery bag of personal items, some
clothes.
Less than a week has passed. Today, is the first Sunday. What will worship
services be like? What can be said?
The call to war has been issued. The words have been said from on high, that
we are at war. There has not been a formal declaration of war, but that
word--to be used by an American President--chills my soul. Our hawkish
leaders believe, in their hearts, that this is the only thing to be done.
But war kills mostly the innocent. That is what we, in America, are raging
about. Those who died in the twin towers were all innocent victims. But what
will we do if we go to Afghanistan to bomb that country? When we bombed
Iraq, who suffered most? The innocent people who had been terrorized by
Saddam. Who suffers most from the embargo? The people. Those people who've
been under the extremist rule of the Taliban, have been suffering untold
atrocities since their rise. It is a country that had been torn asunder by
years of fighting with the Russians. And now, we want to go in and vent our
rage at those people. Yes, there are guilty amongst them. But more are the
innocent. In war there are "collateral damages," a term we used to
anesthetize our eyes from the human suffering. What can we do?
Breathe. Get into the company of others. End the isolation that can become
toxic. Now, more than ever, we need community. Go to church, to synagogue,
to a mosque, to a meditation center, to gym, to a park, to a friend, to a
neighbor. Turn away from the media assault. What we need is the comfort of
society. Here, in America, we've spent years becoming more isolated. Whether
in our homes or cars, we've grown accustomed to being alone. We've idolized
the rugged individualist, who can stand alone under any circumstances. But
we are social creatures. We do not stand alone. We cannot stand alone. We
were all birthed by mothers and would not be here were it not for our
ancestors who made this moment possible. Let us reach out to each other for
support and for comfort.
It seems that for many of us seekers, this is a great moment of truth when
the illusions seem so real, and we have to make choices--not the easy
choices of our past, but real choices, difficult choices, life and death
choices. We must keep focused on the light. We must remember that this is
the world of illusion. All this, including the WTC and the terrorists is an
illusion. Still, we're living in this illusion for important reasons. It is
not up to us to save the universe. The universe is not in danger. But we are
facing human catastrophes that can exceed our wildest imaginations. And I
expect, it will unfold in the years to come.
We cannot control what others will or will not do. We have to hold the world
in light. We have to affirm the truth of a loving God. Our minister Paul
Tenaglia, quoted Ghandi today. He said, and I paraphrase, "The forces of
evil have never, ever lasted. The only thing that will last comes from love.
The only permanence is love." I find that a comforting thought. We have seen
it throughout history. There have been innumerable evils perpetrated against
humanity and nature. Yet none of them have sustained. All have passed away.
And we are still here, still climbing, still questing, still loving. It is
our duty to continue to love and forgive through this all. To do otherwise
will destroy us.
We, you and I, as well as many others, I suspect, have long been waiting the
call. The moment we have dreaded for so long is upon us. We have been called
forth. But what we have been called forth to do is to love, not to fight. We
have been challenged to find the way to keep our minds clear, our hearts
open, and our spirits rising. This is the message I have. There is no other.
Love,
Marc