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Reflection
September 11, 2001
By PATRICK MARRIN
We are pulled forward into a future we do not want
Come sooner than we feared Like terror at the thought of judgment We are
not prepared for this The scale of this The loss of it The threat
delivered like a blow To the fact of who we are. Taken by surprise, we
absorb This savage, brilliant act of vengeance, asking Who, and
why? Was there some remedy we missed Some redress that might have
averted The box-knives in the cockpit, The jet fuel inferno of office
workers And those who raced to rescue them?
Retribution lays out its
tracks early That soulless satisfaction that always seems To retrieve its
path home again, but always higher In a never-ending spiral, fresh victims,
sorrow Upon sorrow, fueling its own causes.
Those who now grieve
without this simple cure Are thrust forward by the collapse of
meaning The assault on symbols that cannot save us To the colder season
where darkness begs for light -- September to October and November Holy
observance of Endtimes and the Advent of new life When only altars can bear
the ache and longing That permeate our waking hours and sleepless
nights. As days grow shorter, it is then that people gather In every
tongue and race huddle to rekindle hope The ancient songs and common symbols
shared Rekindle and return, whispered words that reassert God still
dwells within our damaged human circle And love is still stronger than
death.
Against so primitive a need, in this one protected space We
dare ponder the unthinkable: What world is ending? Is it ours? What prayer
will forge our sorrow Into compassion for the work ahead? What grace will
give us back tomorrow Where mercy and justice might embrace? As Jesus
wept and saw the temple fall He took his own place among the victims To
await a second coming, where tears are wiped away. Apocalyptic signs cover
innocent and sinner same With smoke and ash, terror and rage. The Son of
Man, that stunning future we resisted Is coming then and now and once
again.
These images describe the urgency, the
surprising Inevitability of his promised presence in our hour of
need: Like a thief in the night Who breaks in upon our
normalcy, the illusion we are safe And steals the ground beneath our
feet, The changed course that marks our fate. We will never be the
same. Going out like children under bright familiar skies We return
changed, older, shock-eyed, trembling.
But also this
parable: Like a woman in labor Whose time of anguish gives
birth to new life The long sorrow that yields to new worlds Resurgent
hope that what we -- one generation -- Could only conceive but could not
do Others will do, must do. A birth of new hope Not in the possibility
of peace But its necessity -- our end or our beginning. The sowing we
will reap.
Patrick Marrin is editor of Celebration, the ecumenical
worship resource published by the National Catholic Reporter Publishing
Company.
National Catholic Reporter, September 21,
2001
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