Copy That! Was God the Problem on 9/11?
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I reflect on the 9/11 anniversary events I attended in the Chicago area: the Ground Zero 360 exhibit at the Field Museum and a conversation with community leaders at the WBEZ studio sponsored by the Project on Civic Reflection. When asked how we could recapture the unity of those early days after 9/11, one women I met at the Field said, "Turn to God". That got me thinking.
Saturday, 17 September 2011 12:01
posted by Andrew McKenna
Brilliant and moving for clarity and coherence, feelingly communicated: the request that we try to imagine "a new American goal or mission that would really show leadership about how to build peace without violence" concisely and emphatically suggests a radical swerve from our country's pattern that, rather than leadership, has demonstrated only mirrored reaction to others' violence. Getting back or getting even is not, by definition, leadership; it is mimicry.
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Friday, 16 September 2011 13:28
posted by
Douglas Asbury
Thank you for your reflections, Suzanne.
Towards the end of your message, a thought formed in my mind, that such presentations as the Ground Zero 360 exhibit you attended need to proliferate and, where possible, to become permanent in communities around the world.
If God is "on the side of the victims," and, in fact, through Jesus Christ and his sacrificial death, God identifies with all victims of violence, then perhaps the way to turn towards God is for us to have victims of human violence seared into our consciousness through continual and profuse displays of pictures and stories of these victims, accompanied by the question, "How many must die for us to begin to desire peace so much that we will not stop until we have done all we can to enflesh it?"
Visiting the various war memorials - especially the Vietnam Wall - in Washington, D.C., and having traveling exhibits such as the Ground Zero 360 exhibit, the Traveling Wall, and others, and observing Memorial Day, Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, Veteran's Day and other such occasions are useful in this regard, yet they are not adequate. Our sensibilities must be stimulated to a point at which defenses give way to awareness, grief, and compassion - for those who have died and for ourselves - so that God might enter into our weakness with God's weakness and become our only strength.
Friday, 16 September 2011 11:23
posted by Susan Drawbaugh
I loved your take on this, Suzanne! It does make sense. Wonderful video.
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Co-founder of the Raven Foundation
