I have not forgotten. Once again, I find that I have no words, only thoughts and emotions which I cannot express. I offer these words from The Book of Common Prayer:
I am Resurrection and I am Life, says the Lord.
Whoever has faith in me shall have life,
even though he die.
And everyone who has life,
and has committed himself to me in faith,
shall not die for ever.
As for me, I know that my Redeemer lives
and that at the last he will stand upon the earth.
After my awaking, he will raise me up;
and in my body I shall see God.
I myself shall see, and my eyes behold him
who is my friend and not a stranger.
For none of us has life in himself,
and none becomes his own master when he dies.
For if we have life, we are alive in the Lord,
and if we die, we die in the Lord.
So, then, whether we live or die,
we are the Lord's possession.
Happy from now on
are those who die in the Lord!
So it is, says the Spirit,
for they rest from their labors.
BCP - p. 491
Below is the interior of St. Paul's Chapel near the World Trade Center, which I still consider the miracle church. However did the chapel come out relatively unscathed from the destruction all around it? When Grandpère and I were in New York a year or so after September 11, 2001, we attended a brief noonday service at St. Paul's. I was quite moved just to be inside the building which seemed even more hallowed because of its service as a place of rest and refreshment for those who worked at the site of the destruction. On an earlier visit, while the workers were still using the chapel, my sister and I cried as we walked around the perimeter of the fence when the memorials still covered every surface.
This post is mostly recycled from last year. I remember and note the day with deep sadness, but I have few words.
Images from Wiki here and here.
Excellent. I will be thinking of this today on my cross-country flight home.
ReplyDeleteI feel really crappy today, much more so than I would have thought.
ReplyDeleteI guess I thought I was "over it" at some level, but you know, I never am.
You might recall that I wrote about my own experiences in NYC on 9/11 on my old blog and that was very cathartic, but some new things have come up to bother me and I am not ready to write about them at my new place.
It is just a crappy day and I feel like we have learned so little.
Thanks for posting this though, it is a comfort... You Mimi are a comfort to me and to many.
IT, have a safe flight, luv.
ReplyDeleteFran, I'm sorry you feel crappy, but I surely understand why.
My mind races, and my emotions run high, but I can't seem to write anything coherent, so up goes the same post for the third year. The prayer helps me.
Thanks both of you for the kind words.
My thoughts and prayers are with you all today.
ReplyDeleteDid you see Tobias' post? As last year, it had me in tears.
What a day!
Erika, thank you. I read Tobias' post last night. It is quite moving.
ReplyDeleteOn that day I had just pulled into the parking lot at the Diocesan offices for a staff meeting as the plane hit the first building. I didn't know it at the time but the timing became clear later in the day. It's strange how that's etched in my mind. Today I had to come in early to my own office and NPR noted that it was the moment again as I pulled into a parking lot again. All the feelings of that day flooded back.
ReplyDeleteSeveral years after I had the chance to visit the "miracle church". Just walking through after having looked at the site itself left me in tears. It is a rare and powerful place.
Peace
JP
I, too, although a continent away on the left coast, remember the details--where I was, what was happening. I was in Berkeley --Joel was up in Oregon where we lived. We lived in a canyon without Tv or radio reception. It was mid-October when he came down to pick me up, and he saw a tv clip of the towers collapsing for the very first time, and lived the trauma of it all over again. We had all done our first screaming--he had not yet begun.
ReplyDeleteI think we are all like that. We might discover something new in it all over and over again.
I had signed up to lead morning prayer. I concluded it with the Commendation from Burial II (pg 499)
"You only are immortal, the creator and maker of mankind; and we are mortal, formed of the earth, and to earth shall we return. For so did you ordain when you dreated me, saying "You are dust, and to dust you shall return." All of us go down to the dust; yet even at the grave we make our song: Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia.
Give rest, O Christ, to your servants with your saints, where sorrow and pain are no more, neither sighing, but life everlasting."
I think the call to service today by the families and survivors is an excellent idea.
Thanks, JP and Margaret. I don't know why the anniversary leaves me wordless. My thoughts are jumbled and infused with powerful emotions. There are too many words to speak and too many strong feelings to address that have to do with that day and the events of the intervening years, and that leaves me paralyzed.
ReplyDeleteYou are in my prayers Grandmere.
ReplyDelete