OUT OF THE ASHES
by Forrest Church
September 15, 2002
Opinion polls suggest that two thirds of the American people favor turning 9/11 into a national holiday. This year, for understandable reason, it certainly had an impact long since missing from our more routine and therefore often mechanical holiday observances. Almost as many people crowded this sanctuary for the anniversary service last Wednesday evening as were present last year just one day after the terrorist attack. How we choose to commemorate 9/11 will surely change as time goes by. I will be surprised, however–whether this day becomes a holiday or not–if we fail to pay it deep collective and individual emotional notice for years to come.
I’ve been thinking a lot about holidays recently, having pored over the history of our national days of celebration and remembrance while writing The American Creed. Taken seriously, holidays illustrate the soul map of a nation. Each of us has his or her particular favorites. I also have one holiday I actively dislike.
Muting my distaste, let me simply say that new Years Day is to the spiritual calendar what the appendix is to the human body. It is a vestigial holiday, hearkening back to ancient times when daylight turned back the advance of darkness following the Winter’s solstice, prompting a pagan celebration of the return of the invincible sun. Back then (or so the story went) the apparently inexorable extinguishing of light was reversed every year by divine sufferance in answer to people’s prayers. Once the evidence was in–glory be to Jove!–that days were getting longer, people could begin making plans for yet another year. When the Emperor Constantine shifted his allegiance from the invincible sun to the Son of God, Christmas was moved from summer to winter to replace the pagan celebration, Saturnalia, and–with a little tweaking by the astronomers–coincide with the beginning of the new year.
Today, with nature’s recovery stripped of its life and death drama, apart from the flipping of an annual digit, nothing worth mentioning actually begins on the first of January. If anything, we are battening down old hatches–psychically hunkering down for the heart of winter–certainly not opening up new doors.
Corresponding more closely to the rhythm of our contemporary experience, the ancient Hebrew lunar calendar is much better tuned than the Roman solar calendar to the seasons of the soul. Together Rosh Hashanah, the end of summer, and the reopening of school signal a time of new beginnings, including the beginning of our church year here at All Souls. Today I feel the pulse of this rhythm more deeply than ever. The reason is simple. From now on, to the familiar late summer, early autumn rites of new beginning, we must add the anniversary of 9/11.
That 9/11 should fit so well into the season of new beginnings can be added to many other ironies that mark the first anniversary of this tragedy. Rather than being thwarted by it (as logic might suggest), our experience of renewal may in fact be deepened by reflecting on 9/11. This can be explained–much as New Year’s used to be–religiously.
Religion is our human response to being alive and having to die. A deeper consciousness of life’s preciousness and fragility can only enhance our desire for new beginnings. What the rites today associated with January 1st confect with cartoons of Father Time and his scythe is cast today by the shadow of real death, by the memory of true courage in face of the abyss, and by a more profound awareness of our interdependencies. These three inspirations–the limits placed on and by mortality, the possibility of human achievement, and our need for one another–are, to me at least, much more conducive to meaningful New Year’s resolutions than are the actuarial conventions of New Year’s Day.
Does this mean we should turn 9/11 into a holiday. I really don’t think so, any more than we should have made December 7th a national holiday to commemorate Pearl Harbor, or September 17th, for that matter, the day in 1862 when nearly 4,000 Americans died and three times that number were wounded or missing in the battle of Antietam. If, in each case, the United States and its people rose up from the ashes, that doesn’t mean we should celebrate the fire.
Nonetheless, whether it is made into a holiday or not, for years to come 9/11 will stand apart from other days. Its drama will remain vivid in memory. It is a cusp day, forcing us to reflect on the past and rededicate ourselves to a better future. Both are important. Only by weighing the past can we measure ourselves for the future. Turning one page, we open a new one, which can only be blank if we attend to the old page carefully. This is why, in the Jewish calendar, Rosh Hashanah is followed by Yom Kippur, the days of atonement. Calling us first to weigh life’s meaning and then to harvest our own lives through acts of individual renewal, by reminding us of life’s preciousness and fragility 9/11 too prompts us to take a full and fearless personal inventory. Certainly we did so last year. And, from what I have observed in many conversations over the past week, prompted by this anniversary we are doing so again. Right on schedule. Right in time for the beginning of a new year.
Renewal is important for all of us. As I suggested on Wednesday evening, to the extent that our lives are finally returning to normal after the seismic shock of 9/11, while a sigh of relief is surely appropriate, we must question, as we did in the immediate wake of that tragedy, whether a return to business as usual is, in fact, good enough for us now. Fortunately, just as the mechanics of old habit may be increasing their purchase on our souls, the new year inspires us to awaken and set new goals.
It even conspires to help us accomplish them. Assisting those of us who resolve to make changes in our lives, at no time in the year are there more opportunities to act on our resolution. You can begin right here, in fact. Every fall this congregation comes to life. This year especially–again perhaps in part because of what happened last year–All Souls is vibrant with possibility.
Last week I spoke on the American ideal of E pluribus unum, giving particular attention to our nation’s place in the world today. For those of you who were not here, there are copies in the vestibule. I’d love to hear your thoughts, and thank those of you who have written me, either in agreement or disagreement, especially concerning my observations on our possibly invading Iraq. This morning–for our homecoming service, which (with the return of Walter Klauss and the full choir) is our own celebration of new beginnings–I turn closer to home. In the New Year’s spirit, I shall devote my attention to the life of this congregation. Individual quests for meaning and purpose are fostered by connection not in isolation, which is one of the principal reasons that we gather here.
Ours is a free faith. This doesn’t mean that you don’t have to pay for it, by the way! It means that, unlike in many other religious institutions, you are free here to consult your conscience and not another’s in developing your personal beliefs. Here we follow the oracles of our own experience, not those of someone else’s revelation. For this reason, our individual journeys are distinctive. Yet the individual paths we have chosen nonetheless converge Sunday after Sunday in this hallowed sanctuary. Championing, as we do, both freedom of belief and respect for the beliefs of others, in its own little way this congregation is a perfect laboratory for E pluribus unum, out of many, one.
I could easily frame this theologically. I believe that the one light is refracted through many different windows in many different ways. Our denominational name even suggests this: Unitarian (one light) Universalism (many windows). This morning, however, I wish to explore instead how E pluribus unum works pastorally and interpersonally. Almost everything I have to say on this subect I have learned from you.
A few years ago, I wrote a book called Life Lines: Holding On and Letting Go. Lifelines have two ends. They can save us in times of trouble if we hold tightly on to our own end, but only if someone is holding on to the other end and pulling us in. Also, there are times when we must let go. Perhaps this season of new beginnings is such a time for you. Our children leave home. Our parents and loved one’s die. Our dreams don’t come true. In such instances, holding on for dear life to a loosened line offers only illusions, and illusions cannot save.
The greatest privilege of my ministry (and I am sure of any ministry) is the privilege of helping, as best one can, those who reach out for assistance at times of personal trial. I am often amazed, not so much by the stories you tell me–by now I’ve heard almost everything–but by the courage you so often demonstrate in reaching out for help, in confessing your weakness or failures or fears, in simply coping when to cope is by any measure in and of itself a kind of coup.
You have also taught me that whatever may happen to us, no matter how bad, is in itself often less important than how we respond. In ancient Greek the word "crisis" means not calamity, but decision. The decisions we make in times of crisis tend either to connect us to a source of strength or to sever us yet further. As I noted on Wednesday evening, it is not so much that failure and suffering build character. If that were the case we would be foolish not actively to seek them out. What failure or suffering do is not to build character but to prove character. If leaning on another when you can stand on your own feet is hardly a commendation of great character, neither is trying to pull yourself up by your own bootstraps when they happen to be broken.
Another thing I’ve learned from you over the years is that, when something awful happens, "Why?" is almost always the wrong question. When the roof caves in or a trap door springs, the only question worth asking is "Where do we go from here?" However we may answer that question, some part of the answer–for it to work anyway–contains the word, "together."
One slightly less attractive thing I’ve noticed about Unitarians–and I include myself here–is that, given the premium we place on individualism and freedom, when trouble visits we are as likely to be what I call counter-dependent as we are to be co-dependent. This may go back all the way to Ralph Waldo Emerson’s fetish of self-reliance, but, whatever its source, it is no less dysfunctional than the more familiar–and therefore, in a way, more tractable–sin of codependence. In both instances, no one is served. Since service is as good a benchmark as any for virtue in a non-creedal faith, refusing attention when one needs it is as prideful, in the bad sense, as demanding attention when one really doesn’t.
All of this has practical consequence. For instance, the same exact thing can happen to two people. One person despairs; the other reaches out for help. The person who despairs is estranged from life: hopeless, adrift, victimized, lost. The person who reaches out for help is connected to a life source, grounded in being, perhaps even transfigured by the experience to become more empathic to others in their failure or suffering and thereby to appreciate more deeply the sacramental depths of human nature. Again, my conclusion from such evidence is quite simple. When at sea, lifelines can save us, but only if someone is on the other end of the line.
One problem with the modern age is that our lifelines often are tangled, attenuated or severed. With the confusion of signs and the breakdown of traditional folkways and moorings, how easy it is to lose our sense of direction and how difficult even to think of making connections, especially when times are hard. That is why congregations such as this one are so important. In community–and even our liberal religious community here performs an ancient traditional function–joy and misery both find company, as do bewilderment and hope. When we are tempted by the allures of self-absorption, to be lifted–if but for a moment–from our estrangement by Walter Klauss’s soaring music or by an opportunity to serve others: what gifts these are. How they water our parched souls. How redemptively they remind us that both human joy and human pain are sacraments to be shared, which is true neither of isolating triumphs nor of isolating wounds.
So this morning I invite you, as the new year begins, to take an personal inventory. Are your spiritual needs being met? If this church is failing you in some way, please let us know. We can’t be all things to all people, but surely we can do a better job being more things to more people, and here you can help us. Perhaps, however, you are failing yourself. If so, make at least one resolution to honor the turning of yet another year. We only have so many chances you know. One day they will run out. How much better even to say, looking back, "I tried, though often failed," than to say, "Oh, how often I failed to try." Choose one of our many groups and enter its circle of community. Often the best form of self-help, by the way, is to stop obsessing about yourself and go out and help others. You can do that here.
To begin on the right note, I have one more suggestion, this to every one of us. Make a point today of meeting one person you don’t already know. I can promise you, it should not be difficult to find such a person in coffee hour this morning. Ask them a little about their spiritual journey, why they are here, what they are interested in. Help them make a connection. Or let them help you make a connection. Be lifelines to one another. If I were to make one new year’s resolution for this church, that would be it. That week after week, more consciously than ever before, together we might help to create a strong and saving set of lifelines, one to another. Not only would each of us be served as individuals, we will all be served together, which is the whole idea of E pluribus unum, out of many, one.
So take a chance. And if you fail to connect take another, and then another until you succeed. This is a safe place to fail, by the way. And an easier place than most in which to succeed, for, to those who seek entry, none of the doors are locked. All I ask is this, and I ask it of myself as well. As we look back on this moment twelve months hence, let us not have to confess–with this, or any other new year’s resolution–"I failed to try."
Amen. Happy New Year. I love you. And may God bless us all.