Remembering

I do not want to remember. I would rather forget. Forget that a few minutes after eight on that Tuesday morning as I was readying to head out the door for my walk to work, a female reporter interrupted NPR's morning program and in a voice echoing confusion and disbelief announced that a plane had just flown into one of the Twin Towers. I would rather deny that after dashing to the phone to call my mother, I pressed the power button on our television to find out what horrific thing had just happened in NYC. I would rather squish my eyes tightly shut and replace the image that is indelibly tattooed upon my memory, the image of a plane shattering into the second tower, with blackness. I would rather stuff my ears full with my fingers and scream at the top of my lungs until I became mute in order to forever silence words and phrases familiar to that day and the days which followed: "the Pentagon has been hit," "a plane crashed in Pennsylvania," "the second tower fell," "terrorist attacks," "war."

But I cannot forget and should not forget.

"Take trouble to pray," Mother Teresa once wrote. And so today, as we individually and collectively remember and mourn the devastation of that terrible, terrible day eight years ago, I offer up St. Francis of Assisi's prayer for peace.

Lord, make me an instrument of Thy peace,
that where there is hatred, I may bring love;
that where there is wrong, I may bring the spirit of forgiveness;
that where there is discord, I may bring harmony;
that where there is error, I may bring truth;
that where there is doubt, I may bring faith;
that where there is despair, I may bring hope;
that where there are shadows, I may bring light;
that where there is sadness, I may bring joy.

Lord, grant that I may rather seek to comfort than to be comforted;
to understand than to be understood;
to love than to be loved.

For it is in giving that we receive.
It is in forgiving that we are forgiven.
It is in dying that we are born to eternal life.

Memory Eternal the servant of God Paul and all those who departed this life on September 11, 2001. May the Lord God remember you in His kingdom always now and ever and unto the ages of ages. Amen.