Dear Friends,
On September 11, 2001, I headed out early in the morning for a meeting of the Hate Crimes Task Force. The meeting that month was being held at the City-County Building and I parked north of the Federal Reserve Bank Building. I noticed increased security around the Bank but thought they must be receiving a shipment of cash that morning. Once I entered the room where the meeting was being held I noticed immediately that many of the members of the task force were not present. At 8:00 when the meeting was to begin the chair announced that the FBI, Sherriff, and Omaha Police representatives would not be with us that morning because of the incident that had just occurred in New York City. I turned to the woman next to me and asked her if she knew what had happened. She said that a plane had hit one of the World Trade Center Buildings. Within a few minutes, as events rapidly developed, the meeting was called off and we were all sent home. Like the rest of the country, I spent the remainder of the morning glued to my television set watching the events of September 11 unfold before us. I had a meeting scheduled with a staff person from Senator Ben Nelson’s office for lunch that day. I tried calling the office but could not get through. I went to the restaurant where we were to have lunch but she never showed up. The world that day had been turned upside down for those who lived in the US and our allies throughout the world.
Masses that weekend were full of people. People that pastors had never seen before. People who were seeking comfort and community in the midst of national grief. The destruction of the towers in New York had brought about a great spiritual crisis, in which men and women who had been too engaged in earthly matters for soul searching found themselves, blown by the explosion, into a face-to-face confrontation with mortality and meaning, the notion of God and the paradox of human existence. For at least a few weeks they all desired a closer relationship with God, a deeper sense of community and some comfort from the storm.
Here we are 15 years later…where are we as a country and as a people? Did the attack change us in any way? Are we better today as a people or are we worse? We certainly have spent trillions of dollars going to war and building a security system to protect us from future attacks. We have gone deeply into debt as a country trying to protect ourselves and our interests. Our grandchildren will still be paying on that debt. American soldiers are still patrolling foreign lands trying to keep possible terrorists at bay. Our allies around the world are victims of terrorist attacks and life for them has become more fragile. No big attacks have taken place here, but are we better as a people?
One of the things that really impressed me while watching the events of 9 11 unfold were the numbers of people who ran toward the buildings in an effort to help people. Many were running away out of fear for their lives, but many were running toward the problem. Those who were willing to run toward the disaster to help others gave me great hope and courage.
I still see those folks. Not the same ones who ran toward the World Trade Center, but folks here in Omaha who run toward problems to help solve them rather than run away. They give of their time and their abilities, they ask nothing in return, they alleviate suffering where ever they can and if they cannot they stand with the victim to help them know that they are not alone. They act in small simple ways and in incredible dramatic ways. Most of the time no one even notices.
It was a Hate Crimes meeting that was cancelled for me that morning 15 years ago. We had been meeting to look at the ways people were suffering in Omaha simply because of how they looked or what they believed or whom they loved. It was a hate crime that killed thousands of people that morning of September 11. The goal of our task force was not to fix the world, but to look at one small corner of it and see if there were ways we could live together as sisters and brothers. Could we look into the face of the one who is different from us and see not an enemy but a friend – more than a friend, a brother or sister?
During the 9:00 Mass we will observe a moment of silence for those who have died and we will toll our bells in remembrance of them. And, we will all be invited to turn away from hatred to love, to see in face of our neighbor the face of God. Some may have harmed us, some may have attacked us, but we must not enter into their hatred, but be who we truly are – the children of God who know how to love.
Peace,
Fr. Damian