Seven years ago. It was a beautiful day in NYC, much like today is in Hartford – crisp, cool, yet with a warming sun overhead. I had a meeting in my office with a couple that was planning to get married. We met early before the male half could head downtown to work. I said goodbye to them around 9, and shortly thereafter, I heard that a plan had flown into the World Trade Center.

At first, we thought it was probably an accident. We remembered the plane long ago that had crashed into the Empire State Building. But soon, another plane crashed, and we knew this was no accident. Then we heard that there might be other planes flying around, looking for targets – one hit the Pentagon, another crashed in Pennsylvania. And then the towers collapsed. So much happened so quickly, it was bewildering.

Seven years later, I remember the feeling of loss, grief, pain, expressed in family members of those who had died, in the questions of children who didn’t understand (as if any of us did), in the voices of outrage that demanded revenge, in the desperate cries for peace.

I didn’t understand – as I don’t today – what was to be gained by transporting our pain across the globe and dumping it on the already suffering people of Afghanistan. I certainly didn’t understand what Iraq had to do with it. And here we are, seven years later. Frozen in 9/11.

Violence freezes us in place. It paralyzes us in a grip of terror and pain. It seduces us to retaliate, as the only outlet for our pain that we know, but that only triggers our addiction. We sink ever deeper into a demonic spiral of addictive violence that only elevates our tolerance and increases our need for more blood.

My prayer today:
May our tears become salves of healing
May our cries become clarions for justice
May our pain become inspiration for peace
May our wounds become beacons of hope
May our violent hearts melt in the fires of war
Becoming for the world
The slippery drippery flow of love.