As I watched in silence yesterday as Presidents Obama and Bush walked with their wives up to the new 9/11 memorial, and honored a moment of silence and prayer, I could not help but be struck by the story that the physical structure of the memorial itself tells. Or better, by the way the memorial invites one into a certain kind of contemplation upon the events of 9/11 – a reflection that I find both theologically profound and appropriate.
First, I could not help but recall what this memorial is replacing – one of the largest buildings of international trade and power in the world once stood at this exact location. Nor could I erase the images of rubble, metal, and ash that took years to be removed from the site. What replaces it, I must admit, I find to be entirely fitting. What was once a towering building is now the exact inverse – a hole with deeper and deeper levels into which water flows. If the legacy of 9/11 is to call us to reflect upon what our civil life together means, then this memorial invites just such reflection. While the response to 9/11 often brought up desires for vengeance, it also called us together as a nation to question who we are, what we value, and what we stand for. Moreover, everyone who lived through that day feels an emptiness in the heart from the mourning at the loss of life. I see that emptiness reflected in the open square in the middle of the memorial into which the water flows. It is precisely that open hole into which we have all been forced to explore following the events of 9/11.
What do we find when we look into the wound of suffering and loss? That is the question that this memorial begs. Like each of us as individuals, we have found as a nation that our deepest values and desires for goodness and peace are mixed with conflicting desires for vengeance and domination. But the heart of our nation, its common good, is built upon something else entirely. At our best, we can find a common striving for civic friendship – within our nation and among the community of nations. Amidst the polarization of American political life, there resides in that hole and that wound a glimmer of the hope that we can come together and create a more peaceful and prosperous world. It is in that innermost space within us all where we meet our deepest fears and desires, and where we meet our God, and where the voice of God speaks a word of hope for us to discern where we are called to live out that goal of peace and prosperity. I find it sobering and inspiring to gaze into this new memorial and I find it hopeful that we have a public space in which to face these deep questions of who we are. I hope that doing so continues to inspire America and the world to strive for the best of what our common life together can provide – civic friendship rooted in a common good and common desire for peace and prosperity, tolerance combined with commitment to our core ideals and values, appreciation for the contribution that various religious communities bring to our common search for peace, and a desire to look beyond ideological divides in order to create a more hopeful future for ourselves and those who come after us…
Tom,
While I haven’t been into the memorial yet, from the TV coverage yesterday it evokes similar contemplative and silence as the Arizona memorial at Pearl Harbor (at least that was my experience of the Arizona).
I was also struck by vision of community present in the very names of the 9/11 victims….one of complex and unified diversity – that at once indicated the global reality of the twin towers as well as the American project.