"I cannot help but wonder: how will this moment of tragedy and loss shape all of our senses of vocation and call?
Particularly, how many of you, our current students, will look back on this time and say: ‘
It was hard, and painful, and it also inspired me to work for the common good.'"
Dear Barton College Community,
On this day, 19 years after the horrific events of September 11, 2001, I join with many of you and many around the nation in pausing to reflect.
I have vivid memories of that day. A junior in high school at the time, a child of a military family, living in an area where many families had connections of employment or history with the Pentagon in D.C. and with nearby Fort Meade, I remember the fear and uncertainty, the strangeness of blue skies empty of airplanes, and a budding sense that the world was not exactly what I had thought it was just 24 hours before.
Many of you have your own memories of that day, and your own ways that it impacted you. For first responders, the day holds special significance. For members of our military, including currently serving troops who may not have even been alive in 2001 but nevertheless are deployed as a direct result of the events, different types of memories may arise. For many of my Muslim colleagues and friends, an entirely different set of associations can be brought up by remembrances of that day. For longtime residents of New York City and Washington, D.C., and for friends and family members of those who died, a personal sense of grief and loss can flow into the communal stream of tears. For so many of us, the memories and associations we have with 9/11 are part of who we are and where we are coming from.
Of course, many of you do not have memories of that day -- some of you, our current students, were not yet alive. Nevertheless, as we live through another moment of national tragedy and pain, I think it is worth pausing to reflect -- to reflect on this moment, and to reflect on the way that, in the midst of pain and tragedy, there is nevertheless an invitation to new ways of seeing and knowing.
Recently, I attended a conference on the teaching of vocation -- a sense of purpose, meaning, or higher calling. An interfaith panel of speakers, ranging in age from slightly younger than me to nearly twice my age, spoke on the reason they had first gotten involved in interfaith dialogue and community building. Every single one of them mentioned the events of September 11, 2001, as one catalyst for their involvement in the work of building communities that could be stronger, more compassionate, and more accepting of human difference. A moment of violence and pain had become, for them, the motivation behind their work of peace and healing.
I resonated deeply with the panelists: my vocational journey, too, was impacted by that day, as I left for college soon after to focus on international studies with concentrations in the Middle East and peacebuilding, and then worked for my church for a year and a half in Jerusalem and then a year and a half doing human rights advocacy in Washington, D.C. For myself and many others, a day of pain and fear became a commitment to working toward a better world.
Today, worldwide deaths from the coronavirus have surpassed 900,000, with the figure in the U.S. steadily approaching 200,000. I cannot help but wonder: how will this moment of tragedy and loss shape all of our senses of vocation and call? Particularly, how many of you, our current students, will look back on this time and say: "It was hard, and painful, and it also inspired me to work for the common good."
Moments of national and international tragedy, even of violence, create a choice: do we succumb to the forces of fear and pain, of vengeance and death? Or do we choose a better way, a way of peace, of justice, and of a commitment to the common good?
We have been faced with such choices before. We are faced with such choices now. My prayer, for all of us, is that our choices, together, can make for a more healthy and beautiful world.
Light and Life,
Chaplain David