Moments of Silence

On this day six years ago, terrorists perpetrated an attack on all of us. Like all of you, I will never forget that morning.

As was my wont at the time, I had the TV on in the bedroom tuned to the Today Show, and was listening to it as I brushed my teeth. I heard something about a horrible air accident at the Twin Towers, and stepped out of the bathroom to see what was going on -- and as that was being dissected, a second plane hit, and it became very clear that this was not a random act.

I, like everyone else who had a job to go to, mindlessly stumbled there, and it was the strangest day ever at the bookstore. As the day wore on, and a third plane hit the Pentagon, and a fourth went down in a field in Pennsylvania, customers came in the store like Zombies.

More than once we talked about shutting down -- people were coming in but nobody could bring themselves to buy anything, and we weren't exactly in the mood to sell, either. But we began to feel like this was about community now, and here was a place people were coming to talk and speculate and commiserate, so we stayed open. I don't recall that we sold a single thing all day.

As soon as I got off work, I -- like hundreds of thousands of people across the country -- headed to church. This wasn't a planned service, but the church had opened its doors and it was eerie the way folks just naturally flocked there all day with no formal call to do so. We prayed, we cried, we sat stunned. We were together.

When we got home -- Thomas had gone with me -- we discovered that someone had placed flags in the yard of every home on the street, and it was so moving. There were flags everywhere. People were gentle with each other. At what was, for those of us of this generation, the most horrific day we'd experienced together, the best in human nature emerged, and if there were any blessings to be had that day they came in the form of thousands of tiny acts of kindness.

Traffic was different that day -- folks waved you in line ahead of them if you were waiting to merge... people made eye contact at stop lights and waved a little.

Much water has flown under the bridge since then, and the country is very divided. I'm not interested -- today -- in exploring the division. What I am interested in today is remembering that when things are at their very worst, we become a community that transcends our differences.

A year removed from the awful day our church, like so many other houses of worship across the country, held a Service of Remembrance. It was after that service I wrote the following piece, and I share it here today with the same conviction with which it was originally written.

Storms on the Seas

On September 11, 2002, I joined with many of you in a Service of Remembrance, commemorating the first anniversary of the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001. It was a deeply meaningful service, made even more so by the absolute quiet of those in attendance before it started. We are normally a chatty congregation, but there was a somber mood that night, fully appropriate for the occasion.

The order of worship indicated that the chiming of the hour would mark the beginning of the service. There's a button the organist pushes to begin the tolling of the carillon, but on this evening something went awry. Rather than a chime, the opening bars of a hymn rang out, and abruptly stopped. Again a button was pushed, with the same result. After several seconds of silence, there came the sound of a lone, low note played manually to approximate the sound of the tolling of the hour. As that note was repeated - over and over - it began to sound to me like the signal horn of a ship returning home to port.

The picture that plaintive sound evoked in my mind -- one of ships and seas -- reminded me of the story of stormy waters tossing a fishing boat about, nervous disciples, and a weary Jesus soundly sleeping.

Frightened by the prospect of sinking, they roused him from his cot, and in a reply tinged with sadness that they still did not fully comprehend Who he was, he spoke words to this effect: Why are you so worried? I am here with you -- why are you so afraid?

He could, I suppose, have driven his point home by returning to his resting place and letting them ride out the storm alone. He could have stood on the deck of that fragile vessel with them until it passed. But he chose to stretch out his arm and calm the sea.

During these days of war and alert level warnings that have become our own rough seas, it comforts me to know that even if Christ had not with a simple gesture stilled the raging waters, His presence would have seen them safely through.

I'm clinging to that.