PASTORAL PRAYER/MEDITATION
REST IN PEACE, Thich Nhat Hahn
I am a World Trade Center tower, standing tall in the clear blue sky,
feeling a violent blow in my side, and I am a towering inferno of pain and suffering imploding
upon myself and collapsing to the ground. May I rest in peace.
I am a terrified passenger on a hijacked airplane not knowing where we
are going or that I am riding on fuel tanks that will be instruments of
death, and I am a worker arriving at my office not knowing that in just a moment my future will
be obliterated. May I rest in peace.
I am a pigeon in the plaza between the two towers eating crumbs from
someone's breakfast when fire rains down on me from the skies, and I am a bed of flowers admired daily by thousands of tourists now buried under five stories of rubble. May I rest in peace.
I am a firefighter sent into dark corridors of smoke and debris on a mission of mercy only to have it collapse around me, and I am a rescue worker risking my life to save lives who is very aware that I may not make it out alive. May I rest in peace.
I am a family member who has just learned that someone I love has died, and I am a pastor who must comfort someone who has suffered a heartbreaking loss. May I know peace.
I am a loyal American who feels violated and vows to stand behind any military action it takes to wipe terrorists off the face of the earth, and I am a loyal American who feels violated and worries that people who look and sound like me are all going to be blamed for this tragedy.
May I know peace.

I am a boy in New Jersey waiting for a father who will never come home, and I am a boy in a faraway country rejoicing in the streets of my village because someone has hurt the hated Americans.
May I know peace.
I am a general talking into the microphone/s about how we must stop the terrorist cowards who have perpetrated this heinous crime, and I am an intelligence officer trying to discern how such a thing could have happened on American soil, and I am a city official trying to find
ways to alleviate the suffering of my people.
May I know peace.
I am a terrorist whose hatred for America knows no limit and I am willing to die to prove it, and I am a terrorist sympathizer standing with all the enemies of American capitalism and imperialism, and I am a master strategist for a terrorist group who planned this abomination.
My heart is not yet capable of openness, tolerance, and loving.
May I know peace.
I am a citizen of the world glued to my television set, fighting back my
rage and despair at these horrible events, and I am a person of faith struggling to forgive the unforgivable, praying for the consolation of those who have lost loved ones, calling upon the merciful beneficence of God/Yahweh/Allah/Spirit/Higher Power.
May I know peace.
I am a child of God who believes that we are all children of God and we
are all part of each other.
May we all know peace.

READINGS

From the Hebrew Scriptures, Lamentations 1: 10
O Lord, look at my affliction, for the enemy has triumphed.
Enemies have stretched out their hands
Over her precious things;
she has even seen the nations invade her sanctuary,
those whom you forbade to enter your congregation.

From Pax Christi

In the gospel story/ where the apostles get trapped in that sudden and wild storm on the Sea of Galilee, we find a lesson for today's peacemakers. When the waves first rose and the boat began to rock, the apostles worked hard and with hope/ in order to survive the storm raging around them But then they lost heart/ and allowed the storm outside/ to come inside. It's easy to imagine/ the apostles as frantic, disconnected, out of control. In their desperation/ they waken/ a peaceful Jesus/ who questions their faith/and calms the storm/ by projecting / his inner stillness, his inner harmony, his inner peace.

Sometimes we peacemakers/ are more like the apostles. We have allowed/ the war around us/ to become part of us. Too often we only worsen the situation/ by projecting our fear and guilt and despair./ What we want to do/ is become like Jesus-to have that still center/ that nothing can disturb. In that way/ we are true peacemakers, persons who project peace/ wherever we go..

Sermon

"Oh, brave new world" exclaimed Aldous Huxley, "that has such people in it!" Huxley meant it facetiously, and so might we in this time of uncertainty and pain for ourselves and our nation. Indeed it would be easy to lapse into the erroneous, but in a way somewhat comforting belief, that we are now in a different world; that our world has suddenly and inexplicably become one in which carefully orchestrated acts of terrorism are commonplace. Or, we might well have taken Huxley's statement literally, as we watched firefighters, police officers and the heroes of Flight 93 lose their lives in the attempt to save others.

I wish I could have been with you, that Sunday after the Tuesday, September 11 attacks. I, too, felt the need of countless others of you to be in religious community. I, too, have been searching for comfort. Amid the stories, the symbols and the images I, too, have been searching for the words you and I both need to hear. And I, too, have been wrestling with the questions: both yours and my own.

I have found this work of the spirit difficult indeed. My previous relationship to the American flag was one of remembered pledges of allegiance and the time during the civil rights struggle and the Vietnam war when I quit pledging allegiance and began to see the flag as a symbol of oppression at home and abroad. Now, in tears, I fly this symbol in front of my home. To what reality does that particular symbol now point? What does it mean to me to be a liberal critic of our social structure and a patriot at the same time?

I have been a pacifist since I came of age during Vietnam. I proudly stood on an adopted heritage of Unitarian Universalism which had a long history of pacifism beginning with William Ellery Channing and his ilk in the early 1800s. The voice of John Haynes Holmes, a 20th century Universalist minister and pacifist who introduced the work of Gandhi to this country, rang out in my head as if I had heard him speak down through the years. Unitarian Universalist Senator Frank Church spoke for me as he opposed the war in Vietnam in the houses of Congress. Now I find myself wanting to see the persons responsible brought to an international court of justice by whatever means necessary. But more than that, in my heart of hearts; I fervently wish that they die in the least honorable way: not in battle, but at the hands of the legal system. I don't understand that in myself. I've opposed the death penalty since high school. I recognize that America has wrought death and destruction in countless countries abroad. I am not entirely comfortable with what I must face about myself in coming to understand these feelings.

I am fearful on a number of levels of what will happen once it is clear that an America United is an America united in grief and mourning and not an America of one heart and mind . I worry that there will be less, not more, tolerance and unity. There is an America out there which thinks that an America United means an agreement with their political and religious agenda. This is an America unfamiliar with the gentle Sikhs who wear cloths over their mouths so they do not intentionally harm even the smallest of creatures. These Americans are being targeted for harassment because they fit a profile: they are dark skinned and wear turbans. Hindu and Muslim Americans are afraid to go out in public, and Islamic Centers throughout this land of the free are being defaced. Few people in this America understand the commitment to peace that is at the heart of Islam. And I am afraid that in the giving of some of our freedoms to attempt to insure safety, that when the threat is gone, that energy will create another Joe McCarthy.

And, at the deepest level, I question whether this faith of ours that speaks of community and tolerance and pluralism and often espouses liberal political as well as theological views is the faith that can sustain me through these questions, much less a faith that I can preach to sustain you. I have wondered not for the first time if a faith predicated on doubt and questioning can have the moxie to sustain you and me in communal distress. I have spoken with many people about what they need to hear from their minister: waitresses, friends, neighbors, family, other ministers. People are coming back to churches in droves as they look for answers and for comfort. People are wanting something concrete to hold onto, something to give them permission to feel what are often unacceptable feelings, and something to absolve them of the guilt they feel for being angry, doubtful, mistrusting, confused , fearful or vindictive. People are uncomfortable with, unused to, the ambiguity they feel; and looking for some theological justification for the action that in their heart they want to take against these terrorists. And, people are looking for hope, for someone or some thing to give back to them the life giving and life enhancing hope that has been ripped from them in a blaze of smoke and collapsing buildings.

There are other questions; all of them legitimate and real. Many of us question America's role in the world, our meddling in the affairs of foreign countries, our own acts of war, our air of superiority, our wealth when the world cries out in hunger. Others believe strongly in the rightness of America, our commitment to the defense of freedom and democracy, and our championship of human rights causes around the world. Many believe that the power of the sword is necessary to serve the cause of justice. Many of us are also deeply committed to the human rights struggle at home and abroad, and find ourselves fearing the increased intrusion of government into our lives in the name of preventing terrorism within our borders. Others of us applaud the increased feeling of safety and security the Office of Homeland Security may provide. Many of us face the possibility of personal loss of family or friends, or have already been touched personally by the events of this tragedy. We fear escalation of the conflict, and we fear conflict on our own soil where innocent citizens lose their lives. Others, some of whom have fought and risked their lives in service of this nation in other wars, count that risk as the price of maintaining freedom. Many of us are or will be affected economically as interest rates on our savings decline, the stock market remains sluggish. layoffs occur, and the tourist industry suffers; and again that may also be a price of freedom. Many of us have the very real fear that disagreements on the course of action we take and on government policy will come between us and our family, friends or church community. There are as many opinions; there are as many nameless fears as there are people here.

At a Buddhist/Christian dialogue conference, a Buddhist monk put into words the difficulties of any faith. "We are not all the same," he said. "We are not hoeing in the same row, but perhaps", he said "we are all lost in the same territory". So I've come to you today not with exhortations nor with platitudes, nor even with the principles and purposes which have become so foundational for the way I try to live out this existence. I have come to you lost in the territory along with you, trying to make sense out of the information overload, trying to mourn and to keep on going, trying to lift the dark cloud of fear and trying to find hope amid the rubble. We are all humbled in these circumstances.

Terrorism by its very nature looks for exactly the response we are compelled to give it. It is normal and natural for us to want to find the ones who so carefully planned and carried out this unholy act. Yet, our striking out ennobles those who so clearly lack nobility. There is nothing we can do against those who wish to die for a cause, perceived or real. It is normal and natural to mourn, to be horrified; and yet that is the goal of terrorism. There are no easy answers, no facile way to assure you that you are safe, that the world will return to normal, and that no further harm can come to any of us. There is no way to take away the pain of death, but there is comfort for those who mourn. The greatest way we can combat terrorism is to refuse to let it get a hold on our hearts. Our task as religious people is to prevent the terror which has gripped our nation and held us immobile from entering the deepest recesses of our lives and imprisoning our spirits. Our holy purpose is, in the spirit of Jesus in the boat with the apostles, to calm the storm inside while the storm rages about us.

I will fly the flag of my freedom, and honor my country's dead and understand in a visceral way for the first time in years that I am as loyal an American as any who wave that flag. I will understand that living in the land of the free and the home of the brave means as much to me as to the one who would condemn my liberal ideas and imprison me if I burn that same flag in protest. And I will understand and hold dear the chill I get when that flag is raised, and pledge allegiance not to the symbol but to the reality to which it points. I am proud to be an American if by American we mean one of the multitude of diverse natives and immigrants who give this nation its rich character, its hope and its challenge. Jerry Falwell and his ilk can tell me that me and my ideas are at fault and I will resist this terrorism of thought with as much will as I will resist Osama bin Laden.

Though I do not know what is right and good, or even what is possible in preventing another attack of terrorism, I am now convinced that although pain and loss can touch me, love and joy are deeper. Although I long for peace, I can no longer assume it is mine without cost. It will take me some time to know what that means.

In our collective despair, we have turned ever more to religion. As Americans, we have turned to the God of Many Names, to meditation, to prayer. We have entered the doors of Muslim Mosques, of Sikh gudwaras, of Hindu temples, of Jewish synagogues, of Wiccan circles, of houses of worship of Protestants, Catholics, Baha'i, Eastern Orthodox, Unitarian Universalist and many more.

And, as I hope you have also found, I have again been sustained and strengthened in and through my faith as a Unitarian Universalist. If ever there was a time for certainty, this time is MOST EMPHATICALLY NOT IT! It seems to me that a faith predicated on doubt and questioning may be the only vital and viable faith for such a time as this. Lutheran theologian Darrell Fasching defines doubt as "the separation that prepares one to embrace a new understanding of oneself.." and insists that "to the degree that we make the answers more important than the questions, we make the finite more important than the infinite-and we end in idolatry-we make an idol of our answers." In this time of national and international crisis, it seems to me that we cannot afford to close either our thinking or our spirits to the revelation of new truth. Living thus in the humility of uncertainty, we are best able, I think, to live honestly. The message we can preach to the world is that our common salvation lies in remaining open to one another.

Our faith emphasizes religious community and it is in and through this community that we find comfort and strength. We have in these last weeks, counted on each other. We have needed to hear the voices and see the faces of our friends and of those who minister to us. In community we are reminded of the central truth of our diverse religious faith: that we are never alone. It is love alone that has the power to transform and to heal. Death and destruction may steal earthly forms, but love can never lose its own. Muslims insist that there be no image of Allah, and indeed our depictions of God or the power of the universe are in our own image, not the other way around. The only way I believe we truly see the face of God is in each other's image; in the images of our friends and loved ones, in the images of rescue workers and ordinary citizens and in the images of our leaders, troubled and torn as they are in the face of catastrophe. The spirit of America is alive and well here in our community and in the larger communities of our nation and world.

In and through our common faith, we embrace this incontrovertible fact of world community. Our principles and purposes affirm and promote "world community with peace, liberty and justice for all". Now all America will have to face the fact of our unavoidable interconnections with the rest of the world. The terrorism that has touched other nations now takes place on our shores, in our cities, in the seats of our government's power. We now know first hand of the suffering long inflicted on others. We now know the fragility of ourselves, a fragility of which the rest of the world has long been aware. America the Beautiful can now identify with the world's ugly plight. No longer above the fray, separate from it, no longer untouchable in our power, our own vulnerability has become dramatically real. In our suffering, we are now united with all who live.

We join sisters and brothers of other faiths in affirming religious pluralism. Pluralism is more than tolerance, more even than acceptance of other faith traditions. Pluralism is active engagement with the other in a sincere attempt to understand and to be open to the stranger. No where and in no time is this a more critical religious commandment. We live in a nation where mistrust and ignorance threaten to prevail over love of neighbor. America is in danger of becoming reactionary, of denying the very principles which have made our democratic experiment successful. Unitarian Universalism stands as a watchtower of that freedom.

Outside us there is confusion and chaos. And within, the possibility of a peace beyond price that gives lie to any attempt to destroy it. The strength of our nation is based on the ability of her people to rise to the best and highest that is in us, refusing to allow terrorism to rob us of our humanity. This crisis, though it is political, is also a deeply religious one. Some would have me urge you to turn back to God. I will not do that, either out of my personal authenticity or out of respect for those of you who are non-theists. But our human response is and ought to be a religious one. This crisis shakes our foundations. It both challenges and chastizes us in the deepest levels of our being. It forces us in our grief and our pain to search deep for our source of hope, whatever that may truly be.

Whatever your own personal source, today let us all reaffirm and rededicate ourselves in relationship to it. If it is God you seek, may God go with you from this place. If you are here seeking human love, may love be your companion and guide. If you are here seeking comfort, may you find peace.

Yesterday, I saw an osprey poised atop a pole beginning her preparation for flight. In her was all peace, all grace, all beauty, all wonder. Go forth: singing praises to the magnificent and holding fast to what is lovely.

Blessed Be. Ache. Om Shanti. A'Salaam Alakim, Amen. Shalom, Shalom, V'ein Shalom.

MUSICAL INTERLUDE

CLOSING WORDS: Touch each other with gentle hands, Let your hearts embrace a universe, Hold to each other while life shall last, Oh, my friends hold on. (Rev.M.Young)