Painful Remembrances

As I write this post, thousands of motorcyclists are rolling their way through the DC metro area to honor the victims of 9/11. This is the first of what will be numerous observances over the next several weeks of the tenth anniversary of the tragic events of September 11, 2001. There is an old Irish blessing that says, "May you never forget what is worth remembering, nor ever remember what is best forgotten." The blessing reflects what for some of us may be a sense of mixed emotion about an event that certainly will be remembered, yet one whose images would perhaps be better forgotten.

Many of life's most significant moments are sealed in our minds, causing us upon refection to remember where we were or what we were doing when that particular event occurred. I was sitting at my desk in my office at church when Pat Pastor came to tell me what had happened. Having begun my ministry at Westwood just a few weeks earlier, I was just beginning to put names and faces together in a congregation that in that moment had members in or near the Pentagon, and we would find out later, family members at the World Trade Center. I did not see the images of the airplanes striking the WTC until later that afternoon when I went home. I remember the shock at watching those planes become missiles that exploded into the towers, and the towers come crumbling down. Over the next 36 hours I, like many Americans, watched as those images were played again and again on television. I drove down 395 to the Pentagon September 12 and saw first hand the devastation of these heinous acts. Those images are as fresh in my memory today as they were ten years ago, and we will probably have them refreshed again and again in our minds over the next several weeks as they are played once more on newscasts, documentaries, and in still photographs in magazines and newspapers.

To remember such tragedy so vividly is a burdensome thing indeed. I suppose it would be much easier to simply erase these images from our minds and put it all behind us...if that were possible; but it is not. Indeed, as painful as these images and commemorations are and will be over the next few weeks, to remember, reminds us that we exist in community where the hurt and heartache of others is our own...not just through our national identity as citizens of this nation, but also as inhabitants of a world where violence and hatred take a daily toll. To put such memories out of our minds is to live in a world that is not real...a place of our making that limits our understanding of life's experiences to only the select ideals of what some folks call, "positive thinking." I consider myself to be a positive thinker, but only in the context of a troubled world. My hope today amidst continuing wars, governmental stalemate, financial upheaval, and social unrest is the same as it was in the aftermath of 9/11, just as it was for some in the aftermath of Pearl Harbor, the assassinations of John F. Kennedy and Martin Luther King, the heavy costs of gaining equal treatment and rights in the civil rights movement, Hurricane Katrina, the recent Tsunami in Japan or any of a number of tragic events that have touched our nation and the world...my hope is built on the One the Psalmist spoke of as his Rock, Almighty God. "I find rest in God; only he can save me. He is my rock and my salvation. He is my defender; I will not be defeated." (Psalm 62:1-2)

Traffic in our area will be a mess tonight...painful remembrances are often messy. Over the next three weeks these messy remembrances will confront us with images and stories of a terrible day. There will be the temptation to look around at the many messes around us and wonder about what the future holds. In doing so, let us also remember the words of Jesus as he spoke to his followers in an unsettled and tragic time... "In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world.”

Brothers and sisters, in our remembrances and in the challenges that face us every day, take heart, for Christ has indeed overcome!

Jim Abernathy