9/11/01 REFLECTIONS:

George Kleinberger offered this selection from The Winds of War:

The darkness was merciful to Pearl Harbor.  The smashed battleships were invisible.  Overhead a clear starry black sky arched, with Orion setting in the west, and Venus sparkling in the east, high above a narrow streak of red.  Only the faintest smell of smoke on the sea breeze hinted at the gigantic scene of disaster below.  But the dawn brightened, light stole over the harbor, and soon the destruction and the shame were unveiled once more.  At first the battleships were merely vague shapes; but even before all the stars were gone, one could see the Pacific Battle Force, a crazy dim double line of sunken hulks along Ford Island - and first in the line, the U.S.S. California.

Victor Henry turned his face from the hideous sight to the indigo arch of the sky, where Venus and the brightest of the stars still burned: Sirius, Capella, Procyon, the old navigation aids.  The familiar religious awe came over him, the sense of a Presence above this pitiful little earth.  He could almost picture God the Father looking down with sad wonder at this mischief.  In a world so rich and lovely, could his children find nothing better to do than to dig iron from the ground and work it into vast grotesque engines for blowing each other up?  Yet this madness was the way of the world.  He had given all his working years to it.  Now he was about to risk his very live at it.  Why?

Because the others did it.  Because Abel's next-door neighbor was Cain.  Because with all its rotten spots, the United States of America was not only his homeland but the hope of the world.  Because if America's enemies dug up iron and made deadly engines of it, America had to do the same, and do it better, or die.  Maybe the vicious circle would end with this first real world war.  Maybe it would end with Christ's second coming.  Maybe it would never end.

But he was living in 1941.  Below in the brightening dawn lay his own sunken ship and his own destroyed fleet.  The professional sailors and fliers who had done this thing, and done a damned smart job of it, had obeyed orders of politicians working with Hitler.  Until the life was beaten out of that monster, the world could not move an inch toward a more sane existence.  There was nothing to do now  but win the war.

Al DeSalvo offered us this email from Rabbi Arthur Waskow, director, The Shalom Center:

In 1984, when the nuclear arms race was in speed-up mode, The Shalom Center built a sukkah between the White House and the Soviet Embassy in Washington.

A sukkah is just a hut, the most vulnerable of houses. Vulnerable in time, where it lasts for only a week each year. Vulnerable in space, where its roof must be not only leafy but leaky -- letting in the starlight, and gusts of wind and rain.

For much of our lives we try to achieve peace and safety by building with steel and concrete and toughness. Pyramids, air raid shelters, Pentagons, World Trade Centers. Hardening what might be targets and, like Pharaoh, hardening our hearts against what is foreign to us.

But the sukkah comes to remind us: We are in truth all vulnerable. If "a hard rain gonna fall," it will fall on all of us.

Americans have felt invulnerable. The oceans, our wealth, our military power have made up what seemed an invulnerable shield. We may have begun feeling uncomfortable in the nuclear age, but no harm came to us. Yet yesterday the ancient truth came home: We all live in a sukkah.

Not only the targets of attack but also the instruments of attack were among our proudest possessions: the sleek transcontinental airliners. They availed us nothing. Worse than nothing.

Even the greatest oceans do not shield us; even the mightiest buildings do not shield us; even the wealthiest balance sheets and the most powerful weapons do not shield us.

There are only wispy walls and leaky roofs between us. The planet is in fact one interwoven web of life. I MUST love my neighbor as I do myself, because my neighbor and myself are interwoven. If I hate my neighbor, the hatred will recoil upon me.

What is the lesson, when we learn that we -- all of us -- live in a sukkah? How do we make such a vulnerable house into a place of shalom, of peace and security and harmony and wholeness?

The lesson is that only a world where we all recognize our vulnerability can become a world where all communities feel responsible to all other communities. And only such a world can prevent such acts of rage and murder.

If I treat my neighbor's pain and grief as foreign, I will end up suffering when my neighbor's pain and grief curdle into rage.

But if I realize that in simple fact the walls between us are full of holes, I can reach through them in compassion and connection.

Suspicion about the perpetrators of this act of infamy has fallen upon some groups that espouse a tortured version of Islam. Whether or not this turns out to be so, America must open its heart and mind to the pain and grief of those in the Arab and Muslim worlds who feel excluded, denied, unheard, disempowered, defeated.

This does not mean ignoring or forgiving whoever wrought such bloodiness. Their violence must be halted, their rage must be calmed -- and the pain behind them must be heard and addressed.

Instead of entering upon a "war of civilizations," we must pursue a planetary peace.

SERMON

We got a call in the office from Linda Thompson, a Unitarian Universalist in the Glens Falls congregation at about 9:00am on Tuesday letting us know something had happened to the World Trade Center. We turned on the television in Stott lounge and watched the whole thing unfold. Our eyes were glued to the screens in disbelief wondering what might happen next as the second plane hit and then the Pentagon was hit. I could feel fear clutching my heart aching for the loss of life transpiring. Watching the towers collapse, I could almost hear silenced screams as thousands of people lost their lives.

As we were having a memorial service Tuesday night for Frank Cole, Dave Weissbard, who had flown in to give the eulogy, and we put our heads together to figure out what to do. I've been trying to recover a sense of what-the-right-thing-is-to-do-next ever since.

It wasn't until Wednesday morning that this horrific attack took on new dimension for me. I got a call from my step mother worried about my father. I called him and he asked if I'd heard from my sister Sue. Sue was supposed to be back in her office Wednesday and he assumed she may have been flying on Tuesday. She flies the now-less friendly skies of United regularly and sometimes takes the Boston to LA flight. Suddenly this attack became personal. Someone in my family was at risk.

An hour later I heard back from my father that he had talked to someone in her department. Yes, she had planned to fly that day from Brazil but was grounded along with an estimated 1.8 million other travelers. She expects it may take her another several days to finally get back to Southern California.

Large as this national disaster is, each of the thousands of deaths is personal to somebody. Saturday morning as I was scanning the Internet for news, I saw the CNN missing person site. The site lists the names of the people who relatives are trying to locate. Most of the names had pictures and very sketchy details about what floor of the World Trade Center they worked on, how tall they were, and the color of their hair and eyes. For some the only information listed was what they were wearing that day.

The suffering that began on Tuesday is beyond any of our abilities to comprehend. And if we could comprehend it, it would probably tear our hearts to shreds. I'm not sure we could feel all this pain and continue to live. It is completely reasonable for us to want to protect ourselves from this suffering by turning the television off and trying to return to some semblance of normal life.

And for many of us, there is an impulse to help. For all the horror of this week, there are just as many and more stories that testify to the greatness of the human spirit. People immediately rushed out to donate blood. Food donations are still pouring in. Corporations of setting up special assistance funds. As I mentioned earlier, we will have a special collection next Sunday for the relief effort sponsored by our own Unitarian Universalist Service Committee. These folks we can trust to use our donations wisely to help respond to the gaping chasm of need in New York City.

Today, I think we've moved past the shock of what happened and are now asking ourselves why and what can we do about these despicable attacks as a nation and as individuals.

As many commentators and some of our elected officials have pointed out, we cannot respond to this attack as we have in the past. The rules for international relations will be changed by these acts of mass destruction. There are no visible enemies brandishing sabers in our face. This enemy of America hides in the shadows poking us, hoping for an irrational massive retaliation that will aid their cause.

I have been pleasantly surprised to see President Bush showing some restraint. He has not yet, at least, lashed out at easy targets like Iraq, Sudan and Afghanistan. He has paused to begin building an international consensus. After all, we do not mourn alone. The name "World Trade Center" says it all. Nations from all over the world lost their citizens when the World Trade Center came down. Secretary of State Colin Powell isn't making wild threats but is setting forth a reasoned approach to hammer out the kind of international cooperation necessary to bring justice.

And as part of that justice making, let us fervently hope we respond to some of the suffering in the world that motivated this attack. Nineteen men committed this act with years of planning. They had years to contemplate ending their lives and the lives of many other people weighing the rightness or wrongness of their actions. These were not the actions of madmen.

Let me quote from an email from my sister. She spends a lot of time in Brazil where she sees and hears a different perspective on America:

I was flying back to the US from Brazil on the 11th, and in the airport in Sao Paulo watched the horrors occur on TV "live".  Flights to the US are just starting again Saturday, and it looks like I will be able to get home next Tues/Wed.   Luckily I have friends and colleagues here to stay with, which has made it easier to be away at this terrible time.  It also gives one some perspective: Americans have been able to keep so much of the world's suffering at arm's length.  Our indifference to that suffering (even if it comes entirely from ignorance, and especially when our government policies are the cause of it) is something people here cannot fathom.  If this terror can serve for anything, I hope we can be motivated to live more in the world instead of isolating ourselves further - but I am afraid when I listen to the voices of our leaders.

(By the way, this is a good time to call the Whitehouse and our representatives in Congress and encourage a reasoned and responsible approach to responding to this crisis.)

Still, at this point, there isn't much we as individuals can do to affect international relations. Many of us are wondering what we can do as individuals to work towards a world where this will not happen again.

This morning I think I have found one powerful way to respond. I have come this morning to recruit you to be a Human Race Activist.

I was recruited as a Human Race Activist at General Assembly in Cleveland, Ohio in June. This was one of the more historic General Assemblies I've attended because it was the first GA there since 1968. You may recall that was a turbulent year that saw the Black Empowerment Controversy send the newly born Unitarian Universalist Association into upheaval. The UUA is still trying to repair the damage of that controversy.

Some repair happened I think this summer in the UUA Presidential election. Bill Sinkford was elected our first African American President by a wide margin. Sinkford was elected on a platform of commitment to public ministry. And it was wonderfully fitting that the day after Sinkford's election, The Reverend Dr. James Forbes, the first African American minister to be called to the Riverside Church in New York City, gave the prestigious Ware lecture. As he gave his lecture, he recruited those assembled to be Human Race Activists. And I was there in the front capturing it on videotape for you to see this afternoon at 1:30pm. I strongly encourage you to stay and see it.

What is a Human Race Activist you ask? Dr. Forbes gave us a quick sketch of the qualities I'm sure you'll recognize if you've been working against racism in yourselves and in our community. A Human Race Activist is someone who:

•  Knows the idea of race is a myth;
•  Is sensitive to injustice and is willing to do something about it;
•  Seeks to dismantle barriers between categories of people;
•  Is willing to sacrifice personal wealth and comfort for the vision;
•  Is willing to risk major surgery on the body politic for the health of the society.

Dr. Forbes illustrated what was needed with the story of a man visiting Costa Rica who found a beautiful talking bird in the marketplace. Captivated by it, he had the bird carefully packaged and sent back to his mother as a present. When he got home, he called his mother and asked her if she liked the beautiful bird he had sent her. "Why yes I did," she said. "And it tasted very good I might add." Her son hit the ceiling. "Mom, how could you have eaten the bird? It was a talking bird! It spoke four different languages!" There was a moment of silence on the line then his mother said, "Then why didn't it say anything?"

If we want to be Human Race Activists, we have to speak up! And we have to do more than talk. There are plenty of people willing to talk the talk. To talk the talk is routine. To walk the walk, Forbes said, is heroic.

Dr. Forbes felt he needed to recruit us because there are powerful forces at work to maintain the status quo. I think most of us realize that while much progress has been made since the '50s and '60s, racism is alive and well. Racism, like the story of Antaeus and Hercules, rises up again and again after it has been wrestled to the ground.

Why is this? What makes racism such a difficult problem to solve? I know I've grown up fighting racism. My parents were civil rights activists. I've been a Unitarian Universalist all my life. I've heard and practiced the anti-racist message again and again. Yet I continue to find shreds of racism hiding in deeper and darker corners of my mind. It is a cultural disease that reinfects us and must be rooted out again and again.

Dr. Forbes quoted our own theologian, James Luther Adams, to help us understand how this process works:

"People can get addicted to [racism] and find it difficult to break the habits of the heart which are built on its deceptive benefits contaminated with death dealing doses of the arsenic of arrogance, greed, pride, power hunger, control, and the perceived assigned destiny to be in charge of the universe, to assign worth to everything and to define excellence as to make a claim of superiority that justifies claims of being a surrogate God or a super human kind of divine being."

Put that in your pipe and smoke it! Dr. Forbes quoted William Sloan Coffin's words that remain as true today as they did when he spoke them, "Racism remains bone deep in our society."

If you're like me, it's hard to hear the depth of this message in my bones. The more I comprehend the width of racism in America, the more helpless I feel to respond in anything but a token way. It is easy for me to feel the task is beyond me.

While it may be beyond any of us to deal with racism by ourselves, Unitarian Universalism can do a great deal to respond to it. We UU's have been beating ourselves up about the acrimony at our 1968 General Assembly for the last 33 years. But Dr. Forbes didn't judge us, he praised us. At a time when there was no place for the black man or woman to respond to the assassination of Dr Martin Luther King except to riot in the streets, our General Assembly was a public space to give voice to that rage. We listened in 1968 and imperfectly responded.

Dr. Forbes praised Unitarian Universalism, before many other faiths, for its talent in narrowing the gap between words and deeds. Small as we are as a denomination, we can have a tremendous impact on American public life. If anyone can make a dent in racism, we will be in the forefront of the work.

Great as our history at times has been to agitate for social change, Dr. Forbes reminded us that we will need more than our own individual efforts to be successful. He suggested where he thought that aid might come from in these words:

I think … that in this task of being Human Race Activists, we must call upon the power that transcends the self, to be joined with more fully transformed and released powers of the self to make a truly liberating difference…[This] holy spirit is the continuing community creating reality that moves through history. One who works against community is working against the whole of creation.

To explain this sense of spirit, Dr. Forbes told us a Sufi story about a little stream that flowed merrily down the side of a mountain, into a valley which ended at a desert. The little stream was distressed wondering how it could possibly cross this desert to get to the other valley that led to the sea. The wind said to the stream, "Release your grip on the ground and let me carry you." The stream began to dry up and as it did, the wind carried it to a mountain on the other side where it came down as rain and flowed into the far valley and on to the sea.

The wind is the key as we face the desert of racism. "I don't care whether you call it God," preached Dr. Forbes, "or love or life or web of life or collective unconscious. Doesn't matter to me. That wind can help us take on a new mission to the nation."

Dr. Forbes words couldn't be more appropriate to the crisis we've faced this week. There are greater forces of good at work even in a time of great destruction and loss of life. Whether we are fighting international terrorism or racism, the wind we want filling our sails is the same.

That wind starts blowing when we make a commitment, no matter how small, to be part of the solution rather than a bystander. My involvement in ARISE began with attending one meeting to find out what it was all about. I know my now intense involvement has filled my sails as I strive to help initiate systemic change that will revitalize the Capital Region, work integrally linked to being a Human Race Activist.

Today I recommit myself to being a Human Race Activist and I hope you will join me in that commitment. I encourage you to commit to walking the heroic walk that can bring real positive change to this community. Make the commitment and then let the wind carry you as you do this desperately needed work to mend this weary world, today, so aware of its pain.

Closing Words

Dr. Forbes closed with a poem he wrote originally thinking it came to him as a children's song. Only when he began seeing himself as a Human Race Activist did he realize it's call to him and I think to all of us:

I looked around the other day and saw
    how truly blessed this life of mine has been
I have all this strength and comfort
    peace and joy within
Special care in times of desperation
    a helping hand when friends are few
So I ask dear Lord, what can I do
    to return some thanks to you
I expected mission impossible
    a call to service far away
But instead this gentle assignment
    God sends to us each day
Love my children
    that's all I ask of you
Love my children
    that's the least you can do
If you love them as I love them
    we shall see them safely though
Love yourself, love me too
    and what ever else you do
Love my children.

Copyright (c) 2001 by Rev. Samuel A. Trumbore.  All rights reserved.