Silence

Silence seems to have been the theme this year on Septmeber 11. Silence will always be the memory for me. We lived at Union seminary in Richmond, Virginia, directly under the path to the Richmond airport. Plans came over all day/night. On September 11, 2001, I immediately noticed how silent that clockwork became. No noise overhead. Only silence. Many believed that the Federal Reserve bank in Richmond was a target, since it was designed by the World Trade Center architect and since the Richmond circuit courts had somehow handled many terror cases.
It was months before the planes came closer and closer, finally resuming something close to their original path. Silence was good yesterday. For that day, words reveal more about where we are in the grief process and how we stand in relation to death. Everyone is at a different point in their grief about that day, some want to trade to get something back, some angry, others depressed, still others in denial. Few of us have emotinally accepted what happened that day.
Paul says that we are "always carrying in the body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be made visible in our bodies. For while we live, we are always being given up to death for Jesus' sake, so that the life of Jesus may be made visible in our mortal flesh."
Affirming life through and in spite of death is the Christian message and the good news of the power of Christ's resurrection. May it be for September 11th as well.