Buddhist Catholic Contemplative Evangelical General Christian Hindu Jewish Latter-day Saint Muslim New Visions Progressive Christian

Beliefs

Topics

Columnists

Resource Library

Research Tools

Video

Podcasts

Thought Readers

Faith In Media Tracker

Newsletters

Ad-Free & Subscriber Log-In Subscription Support

Follow Patheos

Home
Buddhist
9/11 Twenty-0ne Years Later

9/11 Twenty-0ne Years Later

Last updated on: September 11, 2022 at 9:01 am by James Ford

9/11 Twenty-0ne Years Later 2022-09-11T09:01:41-07:00 James Ford

LOGO Patheos Explore the world's faith through different perspectives on religion and spirituality! Patheos has the views of the prevalent religions and spiritualities of the world.

All I have is a voice
To undo the folded lie,
The romantic lie in the brain
Of the sensual man-in-the-street
And the lie of Authority
Whose buildings grope the sky:
There is no such thing as the State
And no one exists alone;
Hunger allows no choice
To the citizen or the police;
We must love one another or die.

W.H. Auden, fragment from September 1, 1939

At the time we lived in Massachusetts and I was minister of the First Unitarian Society in Newton. I had just been with a family visited by serious illness. I was in the car and turned on my radio. That’s when I heard the news. A plane had flown into one of the World Trade Center towers, there were reports of other planes gone missing. Reporters were confused, and the odor of fear hung in the air.

I was heading back to the church, fortunately not a mile from where I heard that terrible confusing announcement. I drove a little faster than wise. Once inside the building, I rolled a television into the hallway between our offices from the closet where we kept it. And the staff and I watched as another plane struck and the towers fell.

I felt a hollowness. I don’t know how else to call it. And then within that hollow space poured worry and confusion.
There was a lot of worry and confusion and many other emotions that day.

Over the next days we learned what happened. Ultimately, nearly three thousand people dead. The most Americans killed on our soil since the horrors of the civil war. And we began to hear the stories.

For years after I could still choke up when I hear them. Of course, it’s twenty-one years now. That terrible moment, those horrors have become history.

And along with the stories of horrors, we also began to hear stories of heroism, stories of such bravery.

For years I would find it hard not to weep when I recalled them. No longer. But, I remember.

A small band of passengers on one of the hijacked planes, learning what was happening fought with the terrorists. They died sparing the intended target, we’re not precisely sure, either the White House or the Capitol.

I have not forgotten.

Of course we reacted. That, too, is burned into my mind. Into my heart.

Some of what we did I think necessary, some misdirected for other reasons, without a shred of genuine justification.

The wake of our vengeance has been terrible. The mastermind of this horror is now dead, as is his second in command at that time, as are most who were directly involved in this plot.

Since then, so much. Twenty-one years of conflict, wars raging across the globe, small and vast fires consuming so much. And the consequences continue to play out.

Our world is now different.

So, how to approach all this? What good news is there that can inform our decisions and our actions? Is there any?

I think so.

A small story from a month shy of ten years after 9/11. It was August when hurricane Irene was racing up the Eastern seaboard of the country. We were living in Rhode Island and I was now senior minister at the First Unitarian Church of Providence.

I was in a discount store throwing cans of sardines, tuna & salmon into my cart. Food that I figured would go into the back of the pantry against worst case scenarios. It was something I long felt I should do, but had never quite gotten around to. Feeling good about my success in collecting discounted tins of protein I headed toward where I hoped to next find batteries.

As I turned onto the aisle, my way was blocked by a man a bit younger than me talking to a woman a great deal older than either of us. I couldn’t tell if they knew each other, or if he just decided to impose upon her age, in that way people sometimes do with the extremely aged and small children. He asked in a friendly enough way, if with just a hint of condescension hanging in the back, if she were worried about the hurricane. She was in addition to being obviously very old, very small and a bit hunched over.

She straightened up with that question to perhaps a full nearly five foot tall. And she replied, “Hah! I made it through ’38! And, I’ve never been afraid of anything since…” ’38, the Long Island Express. It was a horrific hurricane, perhaps the worst in American history.

Hearing this immediately took me back a couple of days. At the end of that week as Jan & I were getting ready for a small dinner with a visiting Zen priest from Atlanta, itself just ahead of our annual weekend with old friends at Tanglewood. Tanglewood was and is in the farthest western part of Massachusetts and is the summer home of the Boston Symphony.

Auntie, who lived with us for almost a quarter of a century, very much at the heart of our family, was vacuuming the living room carpet. She plopped herself down in a chair and sighed deeply. I asked what’s up? She said her leg, the other one than the one that had a blood clot back at the beginning of the year, now hurt just like the one in January did. I asked how long it had been like this. She replied it started two weeks ago. Now, just the prior week she had an ultra sound on the leg which had the blood clot to see if it was well and duly gone. It was. Being auntie, she hadn’t thought that she was beginning to have similar pains in the other leg might mean anything. Until now.

I stifled a sigh and I called her doctor’s office. We then ended up spending just shy of eight hours at the closest emergency room. Suspecting such could be the case, before leaving I called and canceled the dinner. The priest and I have known each other for well over a decade as correspondents, but had never actually met in the flesh. So, this was a small sadness. However, in the face of this more pressing issue, even if it turned out to be nothing, well, still it needed doing. No regrets.

They took pictures of her leg and just for the smarts of it, her chest. The good news was no clot. But we didn’t even have a chance to congratulate ourselves before the doctor, why are they getting so much younger every year, continued. There was bad news. They saw a spot on her spine. They also found a fair amount of fluid in one lung. Asked about this she said, oh yes, I’ve been having trouble breathing. Again, didn’t feel the need to check in on that…

We went home, and as per instructions, I called and set up an appointment with her oncologist for the first available, which turned out to be Monday. Jan and I talked and then canceled Tanglewood. It has been a good ten-year run. Oh, well. Life is like that. But having heard all this and what it could mean and then having us leave didn’t feel right. And, what with the hurricane rolling madly toward us, all in all, probably the smart decision.

So, I started watching auntie, whom we usually refered to in her absence as the hobbit. She took it all in stride. She expressed a wave of anxiety about how this might prove devastating financially for us. A thought no one in a fair society should ever have to think, but is a fact on the ground for most of us. However, mainly she was concerned that she’d finished one of her talking book Vampire romances and was worried about getting the sequel in a timely manner.

I have notes from all this from talks and reflections I shared over those years. They help me reclaim memories.

And. Now. Twenty one years later. I think about 9/11. I think about that elderly woman responding to the question about that hurricane. I think about auntie and her concern she have enough time to read the next Vampire romance novel. Some of this obstinacy in the face of bad things is foolishness, no doubt. That hadith of Mohammed, trust God, but tether your camel, traces across my brain now and again. Such optimism doesn’t, or shouldn’t replace getting some batteries, water and sardines.

We need to do what needs doing.

And… I find my heart swimming with admiration for our foolish bravery, we humans. Oh, we’re many other things. Venal. Mean. Sometimes casually cruel. But, we’re also kind and generous. And brave. Small acts. Big ones.

My heart goes to many things. The ancient enmities that came together in that act. Of our own communal complicities. Of the evil people do to each other in the name of nation and religion. And for gain, small and great. The current state of our Republic is something sad. I never thought a neo-fascist movement would become an actual political force. With that wars and rumors of wars. With that experiencing the ecological catastrophe actually under way.

But, the image that most hangs in my mind, in my heart about us, still vivid twenty-one years on now, are those eyewitness descriptions of those firemen and cops racing into the towers as everyone else were trying to escape.

This past week Elizabeth, Queen of England died. I’m no fan of monarchy. But, as I considered her long life and how she served as a symbol and face of a nation as it reframed what it was from an empire to a commonwealth, her part was showing up and showing up. She certainly was well compensated for this. And she referred to her word as a job.

I think about jobs.

But most of all I find myself considering duty. Showing up. Being the glue that holds things together, even as they shift, mutate, and become something new.

I think about what heroism is.

Heroes. Heroic acts. And, for me, really, while I shiver as I think of the firemen racing into the towers, as I think of that little old lady squaring her shoulders in a moment of defiance against all the power of nature, as I think of my auntie, silly hobbit, hearing her cancer may have spread fatally, wanting her next book…

I wonder what love is And I think of people getting up, and bringing their best selves to the matter. Doing the job.

In the face of it all, at our best, we straighten up, and we stand up, and we do what needs doing. Not always, Of course… Not always… But, often enough to think of what love looks like. And enough to give me hope.

And, right this minute; perhaps good words. A reminder. And a hint.

Uncategorized

Previous Post

September 9, 2022

Elizabeth R, Royals in General, Doing the Job, Showing Up and Letting Go: A Meditation on Lives that Matter

Next Post

September 13, 2022 BUDDHIST REFLECTIONS ON THE HEBREW PSALMS: The McLeod Ganj Psalter RSV, Week 4

Browse Our Archives

Select a Category A Christmas Carol Abolitionist African-American Ahmadiyya Alan Watts Aldous Huxley Allen Ginsberg Amedkar Jayanti American politics American Zen Anaheim Zen Sangha Anglican Annie Besant April Fool Armageddon Art and Religion artificial intellegence Atheist Awakening B R Ambedkar Barlaam & Josaphat Beatnik Between Bhagavad Gita Bible biography birthday bodhisattva Bodhisattva Precepts Book burning Book of Common Prayer Book of Mormon Brahmo Samaj Buddha Buddhism Buddhist Buddhist Lord's Prayer Butterflies Calendars cartoons cat ChatGPT Chicken Tortilla Soup choices Christian atheism Christian mysticism Christian origins Christian Science Christian Zen Christianity Christianity and Buddhism christmas Christmas Truce Christopher Isherwood Church of Later Day Saints Cinco de Mayo circus covenant critical thinking culture D. T. Suzuki Dalit Buddhism Daniel Defoe Desert Fathers and Mothers dharma talk Dogen Donald Trump Dongshan's Five Ranks Dorothy Day dream Duty Easter ecology Edwin Arnold emptiness Empty Moon Zen Network Episcopal Church Eternal Now Ethics evolution existentialism Faith fantasy Fathers Day film film review fire Five Ranks Folk music food Form and emptiness Four Seals Francis of Assisi Francis Xavier Free thinker friendship George MacDonald Gerald Heard Glenn Taylor Webb God Good Friday Gospel of Gospel of Mark Gospel of Thomas grace Graduate Theological Unioin Graduate Theological Union Guanyin H R Blyth Hakuin Ekaku Hanamatsuri Hanukkah Harada Yasutani Zen Heart Sutra Henry David Thoreau Hermann Hesse Hinduism History and Religion history of religion Holy Spirit home Hospitality Icon Ides of March Isaac Newton Islam Islamic mysticism Jack Kerouac James Luther Adams Jiddu Krishnamurti Joan of Arc Johannes Gutenberg John Donne joke Judaism justice karma kensho King James Bible koan Koun Yamada Kyoto School Lewis Carrol Liberal Christianity Liberal Religion Life Plan Community Liminal literature Literature and Religion Liturgy Lord's Prayer Love Mahatma Gandhi Mahayana Martin Luther King Jr Mary Baker Eddy Mary Magdelene Mary Oliver Mayflower Compact Meditation memories memory metaphor money money and religioin Mormons Mother's Day movie review mysticism mythic Neighborhood Unitarian Universalist Church New Thought Nichiren Buddhism Nonduality not knowing Omar Khayyam Pacific School of Religion pagan Palm Sunday Passover peace Pentecost perennialism Phantastes Philip Kapleau philosophy Pilgrimage poetry Poetry and Religion politics Prayer Precepts Printing Press prophecy prophetic spirituality psychology Pure Land Queer religion queering religion Quietism Ram Mohan Roy rebirth recipe Relationships and religion religion religion and history Religious syncretism Resistance Retirement Retreat review Rissho Kosei Kai Ritual Robert Aitken Roshi Robert Ingersoll Rohatsu Romani religion Rosie the Riveter saints samadhi SanboZen Sangha Satyagraha science science and reigion science and religion science fiction seminary sermon Sesshin Sex and Religion Shinran Sikh Sikh tradition silence Social Justice Socially Engaged Buddhism Society and religion Soto Zen soul spiritual community spiritual practice Spirituality Sufism Suicide superstition Taoism Television Teresa of Avila Thanksgiving theological schools Theosophy Thomas Merton Time Transcendentalism Transcendentalist Trinitarian Trinity Uncategorized unitarian Unitarian Christianity Unitarian Universalist Universalism Vajrayana Vedanta Walking war Willa Cather William Ellery Channing wisdom women and religion women in religion World Teacher Writing zazen Zen Zen Center Zen inspired retriement zen meditation Zen Precepts Zen women

Select a Month September 2026 August 2026 July 2026 June 2026 May 2026 April 2026 March 2026 February 2026 January 2026 December 2025 November 2025 October 2025 September 2025 August 2025 July 2025 June 2025 May 2025 April 2025 March 2025 February 2025 January 2025 December 2024 November 2024 October 2024 September 2024 August 2024 July 2024 June 2024 May 2024 April 2024 March 2024 February 2024 January 2024 December 2023 November 2023 October 2023 September 2023 August 2023 July 2023 June 2023 May 2023 April 2023 March 2023 February 2023 January 2023 December 2022 November 2022 October 2022 September 2022 August 2022 July 2022 June 2022 May 2022 April 2022 March 2022 February 2022 January 2022 December 2021 November 2021 October 2021 September 2021 August 2021 July 2021 June 2021 May 2021 April 2021 March 2021 February 2021 January 2021 December 2020 November 2020 October 2020 September 2020 August 2020 July 2020 June 2020 May 2020 April 2020 March 2020 February 2020 January 2020 December 2019 November 2019 October 2019 September 2019 August 2019 July 2019 June 2019 May 2019 April 2019 March 2019 February 2019 January 2019 December 2018 November 2018 October 2018 September 2018 August 2018 July 2018 June 2018 May 2018 April 2018 March 2018 February 2018 January 2018 December 2017 November 2017 October 2017 September 2017 August 2017 July 2017 June 2017 May 2017 April 2017 March 2017 February 2017 January 2017 December 2016 November 2016 October 2016 September 2016 August 2016 July 2016 June 2016 May 2016 April 2016 March 2016 February 2016 January 2016 December 2015 November 2015 October 2015 September 2015 August 2015 July 2015 June 2015 May 2015 April 2015 March 2015 February 2015 January 2015 December 2014 November 2014 October 2014 September 2014 August 2014 July 2014 June 2014 May 2014 April 2014 March 2014 February 2014 January 2014 December 2013 November 2013 October 2013 September 2013 August 2013 July 2013 June 2013 May 2013 April 2013 March 2013 February 2013 January 2013 December 2012 November 2012 October 2012 September 2012 August 2012 July 2012 June 2012 May 2012 April 2012 March 2012 February 2012 January 2012 December 2011 November 2011 October 2011 September 2011 August 2011 July 2011 June 2011 May 2011 April 2011 March 2011 February 2011 January 2011 December 2010 November 2010 October 2010 September 2010 August 2010 July 2010 June 2010 May 2010 April 2010 March 2010 February 2010 January 2010 December 2009 November 2009 October 2009 September 2009 August 2009 July 2009 June 2009 May 2009 April 2009 March 2009 February 2009 January 2009 December 2008 November 2008 October 2008 September 2008 August 2008 July 2008 June 2008 May 2008 April 2008 March 2008 February 2008 January 2008 December 2007 November 2007 October 2007 September 2007 August 2007 July 2007 June 2007 May 2007 April 2007 March 2007 February 2007 January 2007 December 2006 November 2006 October 2006 September 2006

TAKE THE

Religious Wisdom Quiz

Who was the mother of Jesus?

Select your answer to see how you score.

Sarah Elizabeth Mary Ruth