Everyone has a 9/11 memory. Even children who cannot remember have heard the stories. The Sunday following September 11th we were out West and couldn’t get home. The Airlines were either shut down or swamped. So I couldn’t preach that Sunday—I was too far from the church. But the next Sunday I tried to gather my thoughts and preach to a group of people huddled together under a cross wondering. Wondering, And so was I.
As my sermon ended that day an Usher came and said, “There’s a young man back here that would talk to you.” I went back to talk to the young man. He was dark-skinned. Obviously from some Middle-Eastern country.
The first thing he said was, “I hope you don’t hate all of us.” Strange way to open a conversation. “I hope you don’t hate all of us.” And then he poured it out. He was from Iraq. He was a student. He’d was far from home. And he had left most of his family back home. He was a Muslim. He was so embarrassed at what had happened.
He said that in that long dark week since the Towers fell some people had been ugly to him. Some didn’t say anything as he passed but you could see the hate in their eyes. He said others pointed a finger toward him and laughed. “I hope you don’t hate all of us.” I tried to reassure him that I didn’t hate his people and neither did so many others. I told him that we did not hold all his country responsible for what happened. I said we were glad he was he was in our country studying and I hoped things would go well for him and his folks he had to leave behind. He shook my hand. And then he turned and left and I never saw him again.
As I watch all the Memorials today—I remember the dark-skinned man with the burning question. “I hope you don’t hate us all.” Little did I know the months and years that would follow.
On that terrible day when the Towers came down people from eighty countries died in those two towers. Years later I took my granddaughter to see the 9/11 Memorial.She didn’t stay a word—just looked. On one wall we saw faces of those that perished. There was not much to say that day. And I still find it hard to put my feelings into words.
Looking out I see a country terribly divided. About masks? About screaming at parents who drove their kids to school and outside the screams and venom and the spittle. My God have we come to this? So divided over vaccinations. Those who worked 12 hour shifts stumbled out of the hospitals to people waving hate signs and yelling death threats. All this ugliness directed toward those who helped the sick and the dying.
On the days after that September morning most of us joined hands. We were united everywhere. Cherly Sawyer’s partial poem says it for me:
“We are
One color
One class
One generation
one gender
one faith
One language
One body
One family
One soul
One people
We areThe Power of One.
We are United
We are America.”
I put these words down beside that man’s question after 9/11. But we now must ask our own question to all of us here: “I hope you don’t hate all of us here.”
"Come by here Lord...come by here,
Come by here, Lord...come by here,
O Lord come by here."
--Roger Lovette/ rogerlovette.blogspot.com
No comments:
Post a Comment