Oh, that I had wings like a dove!

12Sep
And I said, "Oh, that I had wings like a dove!
I would fly away and be at rest.
-Psalm 55:7


Voicemail 9-11-2001

"Jules, this is Brian. Listen, I'm on an airplane that's been hijacked. If things don't go well, and it's not looking good, I just want you to know I absolutely love you.

"I want you to do good, go have good times. Same to my parents and everybody, and I just totally love you, and I'll see you when you get there.

 - From Brian Sweeney to his wife from the hijacked flight that flew into the WTC South Tower,  9-11-2001

Writing into this page this week has been extraordinarily difficult for me because I have weak eyes. “Weak eyes” is a term I borrow from the author Jean Auel’s central character Ayla, from the Clan of the Cave Bear, Earth’s Children Series. Ayla uses the term to describe the ease with which her eyes betray her emotions. Ayla and I cry easily. My eyes well up with joy, with sadness, with wonder, in the presence of beauty, in moments of inspiration, and in the grip of God’s Grace. My weak eyes have been busy as observance of the 25th anniversary of the 9-11 attacks swirl around us. Twenty-five years after the day, the facts of the events still tweak my weak eyes. My struggle to understand God’s place throughout this human-made evil-storm has brought me tears of wonder and Grace.


The vein of divine gold that runs through all the stories of September 11, 2001, and the days and years that followed speak of the connectedness of the human condition as a window into the Divine. The connectedness is always with us; yet we ignore it or obscure it behind self-righteousness. 


Stories of courage, service, and sacrifice run throughout the experience of 9-11. Stories of miraculous salvation became commonplace. Narratives of spontaneous and overt care, compassion and love flooded the sphere of human interaction as an overwhelming antidote to the carefully planned and focused act of Evil personified. It was and still tells a story of a pitch battle between Evil and Good. To those of us who asked, “Where was God?” on that beautiful autumn Tuesday, I now answer, with my weak eyes brim-full, God was everywhere. God was making incandescent the connections between the primary players, ordinary folks, living and murdered; and you and me. The universal touch of Love. May we find it afresh, now.


On the morning of September 11, 2001, I was selfishly standing alone in front of my television. My doorbell rang. When I opened the door, my mother stepped into the house with her weak eyes full of tears. I had forgotten to reach out to her. “It’s like Pearl Harbor all over again,” she wept, adding, “I think the God I have been talking to is too small…”


It is a sentence that has framed my search for meaning in 9-11 for the last twenty-five years because it begs the follow-up question, how do I reveal the connectedness we exhibited then. How do I personify the Divine Touch of Love in my life. How do I be the hands of a larger God?


I meditate on the hands of two people, maybe co-workers, maybe strangers, who stood at the opening of a window of the 92nd floor of Tower One. With flames and hateful smoke reaching for them; they joined hands and leapt into the blizzard of floating paper to certain death. I meditate on the choice they made to choose shared touch as a final prayer, as the only best option to deliver themselves to their God. I meditate on, but cannot know, their prayer in the free-fall. I meditate on the larger God who warped time and cradled their choice in Grace and Holy Rapture. That one is the missing piece for me. It is the missing piece I must hold by faith.


Musical Reflection - Touch the Hand of Love - Renee Fleming and Yo Yo Ma


Great God of all, grant us limber hearts to seek the ever-expanding Love you offer us. Grant us weak eyes and hungry minds to grasp and enjoy the universal connection of all humankind that is Your Love. Prepare us to pray with the Touch of Love. Amen.

Prayer

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