Sixth Anniversary of 9/11

Image from Wiki.

I have not forgotten. I wanted to write a memorial for those who died on September 11, 2001, and extend a word of comfort to their families and friends, but I find that I have no words, only thoughts and emotions which I cannot express. I offer these 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



Interfaith service at St. Paul's Chapel on Broadway on September 11, 2006, from Wiki.

UPDATE: You may want to read Fr. Jake's wonderful sermon in remembrance of 9/11.

From Bishop Jenkins Of Louisiana

Today I received my copy of ChurchWork, the official journal of the Diocese of Louisiana. The former newspaper style is now a magazine. The latest issue is not yet on line, but I wanted to post this from Bishop Charles Jenkins to the members of the diocese:

...The Bishops of the Episcopal Church will be meeting at the Hotel Intercontinental from Sept. 18-25. I ask you to join me in praying for Divine Grace that we may be faithful to Jesus, who, in His High Priestly prayer, asked the Father (that)"we may be one as He and the Father are one."

I need not state anew my traditional and unchanged thoughts on the questions before us. However, I do wish to share several observations, which have expanded my thinking a bit. As our Lord taught in the Parable of the Good Samaritan, it was the Samaritan who proved the good neighbor because it was this racial and religious outcast who demonstrated the quality of mercy. Our Lord's command around mercy was simple, "Go and do likewise." We in Louisiana have seen and experienced mercy from the hands of many for the past two years. People from radically differing perspectives around sexuality have come together in a mission of mercy, and have found their lives changed and the seeming hot button issues put in the proper perspective. Why can we as Anglicans not demonstrate the same mercy toward one another?

A failure to find a way forward together shall not simply hurt each and every one of us, but as sin is always communal in its effects, our failures will hurt the poor and needy whom we serve and to whom mercy is a symbol of hope. The Anglican Communion is engaged in a huge ministry of justice, mercy, and compassion around the world. If we give in to the sin of self-absorption, our souls shall surely be hardened but it is the poor who will suffer most. No matter which side of the issue of human sexuality you believe to be of God, I suggest that if you really want to break the heart of God, you should work to make the Episcopal Church and the Anglican Communion as absorbed with itself and her disagreements as is possible.

The time and the place of the Archbishop's visit is significant. I think we in Louisiana and Mississippi have demonstrated the truth of mission to the Communion. The Morial Convention Center was the place of such suffering and death. Just several weeks after the second anniversary of our being brought so low, we come together to thank God and the church throughout the world for the mercy and support which has enabled us to begin our recovery.

The bishops and their spouses will take off Saturday and Sunday to do work in Louisiana and Mississippi.I need your prayers as I try to get a building for All Souls in the Lower Ninth. The Bishops are bringing offerings to pay for this new Church and I hope they will be able to finish it come September. You will likely have a guest Bishop in your parish Church on the Sunday of the New Orleans meeting. If you want to hear the Presiding Bishop of the Episcopal Church, plan to come to Christ Church Cathedral on that Sunday morning at the 10:00 a.m service....

Feast Day of Alexander Crummell

From James Kiefer at the Lectionary:

Alexander Crummell was born in New York City in 1819, and wished to study for the priesthood, but received many rebuffs because he was black. He was ordained in the Diocese of Massachusets in 1844, when he was 25 years old, but was excluded from a meeting of priests of the diocese, and decided to go to England.

After studying at Cambridge he went to Liberia, where he worked under American leadership to establish a repatriation location in Liberia for freed slaves. Crummell hoped for a "black Christian republic combining the best of European and African culture, and led by a Western-educated black bishop."

His work in Liberia ran into opposition and indifference, and he returned to the United States, where he undertook the founding and strengthening of urban black congregations that would provide worship, education, and social services for their communities. When some bishops proposed a separate missionary district for black parishes, he organized a group, now known as the Union of Black Episcopalians, to fight the proposal.


PRAYER:

Almighty and everlasting God, we thank you for your servant Alexander Crummell, whom you called to preach the Gospel to those who were far off and to those who were near. Raise up in this and every land evangelists and heralds of your kingdom, that your Church may proclaim the unsearchable riches of our Savior Jesus Christ, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever.

READINGS:

Psalm 19:7-11
Sirach 39:6-11
Mark 4:1-10,13-20

Our Sunday School Class

This morning I was up and out early for the adult Sunday school class at my church, arriving late, but not too late. We are watching N. T. Wright's DVD set, Simply Christian, and discussing the presentation afterward.

I like the talks by Bishop Wright, except for a few minor quibbles. His TV presence is quite good. Last week, the subject was justice, and when we went to the discussion, one man in the group had brought 250 pages of material which he had printed from a conservative Roman Catholic website on the glories of the free market, the form of economy most likely to produce justice and equality, soi disant. I sat there taking this in with a large dose of skepticism, and he went on and on, until the rector gently interrupted before he read all 250 pages. Thanks be to God, because I was dying in my seat. I squeezed in a few words to the effect that this was odd material coming from a Roman Catholic website, since the present pope and his predecessor both had spoken out against injustices produced by untrammeled free markets. His going on and on about free markets seemed to take the wind out of the rest of us for any kind of lively discussion. Any wonder?

This morning the subject was spirituality. After watching the good bishop's presentation, the same gentleman was the first to pipe up again to tell us that ours is a Christian nation, and yet there are people who believe nothing except what they can prove through science. Who knew? Then he proceeded to tell us that these folks are walking free among us and having meetings. They are loose on the streets and gathering together. Imagine that! He went on again at some length, and once he was done, I had to bite my tongue to keep from saying, "These folks really should be rounded up, don't you think?" After that we went on to have a pretty decent discussion.

I find it nearly impossible to sit still for this kind of talk and not answer back. What saved the day was the discussion after this man stopped talking. He's talking politics, and if he wants to talk politics, I can do that, but that's going totally off topic and defeating the purpose of the course.

What do I do? Talk to my rector? Continue to go with the hope that he'll stop? Continue to go and pray I won't pop off at him if he keeps it up? Stop going to the class?

Bill Richardson - Opinion

From Bill Richardson, governor of New Mexico and Democratic candidate for president, in an opinion column in the Washington Post:

In the most recent debate, I asked the other candidates how many troops they would leave in Iraq and for what purposes. I got no answers. The American people need answers. If we elect a president who thinks that troops should stay in Iraq for years, they will stay for years -- a tragic mistake.

Clinton, Obama and Edwards reflect the inside-the-Beltway thinking that a complete withdrawal of all American forces somehow would be "irresponsible." On the contrary, the facts suggest that a rapid, complete withdrawal -- not a drawn-out, Vietnam-like process -- would be the most responsible and effective course of action.
....

My position has been clear since I entered this race: Remove all the troops and launch energetic diplomatic efforts in Iraq and internationally to bring stability. If Congress fails to end this war, I will remove all troops without delay, and without hesitation, beginning on my first day in office.

Let's stop pretending that all Democratic plans are similar. The American people deserve precise answers from anyone who would be commander in chief. How many troops would you leave in Iraq? For how long? To do what, exactly? And the media should be asking these questions of the candidates, rather than allowing them to continue saying, "We are against the war . . . but please don't read the small print."

Bravo, Bill Richardson. I absolutely agree. He's thrown down the gauntlet. He's challenged the other candidates to state plainly what they will do about Iraq. I challenge them, too. I want details from all of the candidates, not vague statements like, "Well, it's complicated." Dennis Kucinich has stated that he will bring all of the troops home, but what about the rest of them?

I put to them the question that John Kerry asked about the Vietnam War, "How do you ask a man to be the last man to die for a mistake?" Think about that, Democratic candidates, and tell us what you will do if you become president.

Please Pray - Again

The vet did exploratory surgery on my daughter's cat, Beyoncé, and her condition is hopeless. She will put her down in a few minutes.

My daughter and her three boys are distraught from grief. The cat was with them only a few months, but she had captured their hearts in a powerful way.

O Lord God bestow your love upon A, B, A, and W and heal them in spirit, mind, and body. Give them strength and courage to go on, and fill their hearts with your peace that passes understanding in Christ Jesus. Amen

Riverbend Has Left Iraq

Riverbend, the Baghdad blogger, and her family have left Iraq. They are now refugees in Syria:

Thursday, September 06, 2007
Leaving Home...
Two months ago, the suitcases were packed. My lone, large suitcase sat in my bedroom for nearly six weeks, so full of clothes and personal items, that it took me, E. and our six year old neighbor to zip it closed.

Packing that suitcase was one of the more difficult things I’ve had to do. It was Mission Impossible: Your mission, R., should you choose to accept it is to go through the items you’ve accumulated over nearly three decades and decide which ones you cannot do without. The difficulty of your mission, R., is that you must contain these items in a space totaling 1 m by 0.7 m by 0.4 m. This, of course, includes the clothes you will be wearing for the next months, as well as any personal memorabilia- photos, diaries, stuffed animals, CDs and the like.

The family's trip out of Iraq was postponed twice, once because of a nearby explosion and curfew, and again when their driver's brother was killed.

There was one point, during the final days of June, where I simply sat on my packed suitcase and cried. By early July, I was convinced we would never leave. I was sure the Iraqi border was as far away, for me, as the borders of Alaska. It had taken us well over two months to decide to leave by car instead of by plane. It had taken us yet another month to settle on Syria as opposed to Jordan. How long would it take us to reschedule leaving?

Finally the day of leave-taking was set, and Riverbend said good-bye to family they were leaving behind and to their home.

I knew then as I know now that these were all just items- people are so much more important. Still, a house is like a museum in that it tells a certain history. You look at a cup or stuffed toy and a chapter of memories opens up before your very eyes. It suddenly hit me that I wanted to leave so much less than I thought I did.

The frightening part of the trip was getting through two checkpoints manned by masked men and being in the presence of so many vehicles, wondering if one of them would blow up. They crossed the border into Syria.

The Syrian border was almost equally packed, but the environment was more relaxed. People were getting out of their cars and stretching. Some of them recognized each other and waved or shared woeful stories or comments through the windows of the cars. Most importantly, we were all equal. Sunnis and Shia, Arabs and Kurds… we were all equal in front of the Syrian border personnel.

We were all refugees- rich or poor. And refugees all look the same- there’s a unique expression you’ll find on their faces- relief, mixed with sorrow, tinged with apprehension. The faces almost all look the same.

The first minutes after passing the border were overwhelming. Overwhelming relief and overwhelming sadness… How is it that only a stretch of several kilometers and maybe twenty minutes, so firmly segregates life from death?

Riverbend writes English beautifully, I have been reading her posts since August, 2003. A link to her blog is there on my sidebar. In the beginning, she was a vibrant young woman, with her sense of humor intact, even though her country had been invaded. I have watched her mood gradually turn dark as, month after month, year after year, the situation in Iraq worsened. At the end of her time in Iraq, there was a dullness and dispiritedness about her posts that made my heart ache. Then she announced that she and her family were leaving Iraq. That was in April of this year, with no word since then. I worried about her when she went for long stretches without posting, fearing the worst.

What relief I felt when I read at Juan Cole's Informed Sources that she had posted again and that she and her family made it safely out of Iraq in July. So very many have not.

Cole says:

Riverbend the most well-known Sunni Arab blogger of Baghdad , is no longer a Baghdadi. Like some 2 million other Iraqis, she is now a refugee in a neighboring country (she is in Syria, where there may now be 1.5 million Iraqis; there are some 800,000 in Jordan). Her family had decided that it was just too dangerous to remain in Baghdad, where Shiite militiamen have been ethnically cleansing them. Clearly, they were afraid of a home invasion by the Mahdi Army. She is lucky to have gotten out a couple of months ago. Syria just decided to tighten up visa requirements for Iraqis trying to flee there. Al-Hayat reports that Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki had been apprised of this decision earlier.

We have caused the catastrophe in Iraq, and it seems to be the war without end. Yes, we brought down the evil dictator, but are the people of Iraq better off now? The war has lasted longer than WWII. It's time to end the American occupation of Iraq. It's time to bring the troops home.

Yes, there will likely be worse bloodshed once we leave, but there will never be a good time to leave. It is not in our power to improve the situation, so why not leave now?

Once the troops leave, we must do what we can for the Iraqis by giving humanitarian help and assisting them in reconstruction. We cannot abandon them, but we must no longer occupy their country.

R. I. P. Madeleine L'Engle

Another death.

Madeleine, may you rest in peace and rise in glory.

From the New York Times:

The family lived on the Upper East Side of Manhattan; her parents had artistic friends, Madeleine an English nanny. She felt unpopular at school. She recalled that an elementary school teacher – Miss Pepper or Miss Salt, she couldn’t remember which — treated her as if she were stupid.

She had written her first story at 5 and retreated into writing. When she won a poetry contest in the fifth grade, her teacher accused her of plagiarizing. Her mother intervened to prove her innocence, lugging a stack of her stories from home.
....

Her deeper thoughts on writing were deliciously mysterious. She believed that experience and knowledge are subservient to the subconscious and perhaps larger, spiritual influences.

“I think that fantasy must possess the author and simply use him,” she said in an interview with Horn Book magazine in 1983. “I know that is true of ‘A Wrinkle in Time.’ I cannot possibly tell you how I came to write it. It was simply a book I had to write. I had no choice.

“It was only after it was written that I realized what some of it meant.”

What turned out to be her masterpiece was rejected by 26 publishers. Editors at Farrar, Straus and Giroux loved it enough to publish it, but told her that she should not be disappointed if it failed.

Wouldn't that be a lovely way to write, being sort of possessed as one does it?

I was once accused of plagiarizing a Spanish essay. To put careful effort into writing and then be accused of not writing it is an ugly thing. I had no stock of Spanish essays to prove that I had written the piece. The name of the nun who accused me was Sr. Mary Madeleine. May she rest in peace, also.

Thanks to the Episcopal Café for the link.

UPDATE: Tobias, who knew Madeleine, has a lovely remembrance at In A Godward Direction.

May Flights Of Angels Sing Thee To Thy Rest

Luciano, may you rest in peace and rise in glory.

I heard Pavarotti live when he was past his prime for singing entire operas but, as yet, had a sweet, sweet, marvelous voice in concert. What a pleasure! He was quite gracious in giving us two or three encores.

At that time, he was missing more than an occasional performance, and I was not confident that he would be there until he actually walked out on the stage. He was doing a benefit for some cause or other in Baton Rouge, La.

I feel privileged to have heard him. It was the sweetness of his voice that captivated me.

From Us To You

Gifts are on the way from the states of Washington, New Mexico, and California to South Carolina.

From the Seattle Times:

By H. JOSEF HEBERT

The Associated Press

WASHINGTON (AP — The Energy Department plans to send plutonium in Washington state and at research laboratories in New Mexico and California to the Savannah River nuclear complex in South Carolina to improve security and reduce storage costs.

It's a tough problem deciding what to do with nuclear waste? Most folks say NIMBY. We need the power from nuclear plants, but no one wants the consequences of storing the waste nearby.

Aware that officials in South Carolina have expressed concerns that their state not become a permanent dump for the country's unneeded plutonium, Rispoli emphasized at a news conference that the DOE plans include getting the material out of the state.

"The intent is not only to bring the plutonium there, but dispose of it at the (Savannah) site and then have pathways for all of this material to leave the state," Rispoli said. He said a facility to store the plutonium at Savannah River is being prepared with increased security.

Department officials acknowledged that it will likely take more than a decade — and possibly much longer — before much of the plutonium will be processed and moved elsewhere.
....

The plan calls for the plutonium to be either converted into a mixed-oxide fuel, or MOX, for use at commercial nuclear power plants or be encased in glass logs for eventual transfer to the Yucca Mountain high-level nuclear waste repository being planned in Nevada.

However, the MOX production facility at Savannah River won't be completed before 2017 at the earliest. And the future of the proposed Yucca Mountain underground repository is in doubt and is not expected to be completed before 2018 if it is built at all.
....

Edwin Lyman of the Union of Concerned Scientists, a leading nuclear nonproliferation advocacy group, said the group supports consolidation "as long as it's done as safely and securely as possible."

I'm not saying that the Energy Department is making the wrong decision, but I see much shuffling around of nuclear materials and a good many "ifs" and uncertain time-lines involved here. It does not have the look a well-planned operation, and the long view of how all of this will come out seems to be pretty cloudy.

Let's hope and pray that the moving and storage of the materials is done safely, and good luck to South Carolina in getting it moved out - eventually. How confident can we be that all proper safety and security measures will be in place during this operation?

LapinBizarre, R U Reddy?

Am I crazy to concern myself with this?