Remembering

It is an old word trick of preachers to take Jesus' words, "Do this in remembrance of me" and play with the word "remember." It can mean "bring back" or "put back together."


Re - member.



Today let us both recall and put-back-together.
To recall the events of 9/11/01 would be to recall the fears, the confusion, the uncertainty that we all felt as we watched or listened or read about the events...

To recall the heroes of the day, both living and dead as well as those who have performed similar acts of heroism in the many days since, including on the Gulf Coast...

To recall the thousands of innocent people who lost their lives by being in the wrong place at the wrong time...

And in remembering we also:



Put back together the promises of freedom and life that the attack sought to destroy...


Put back together the sensitivity of the meaning of the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island that were threatened by the attacks as we seek to keep out those who are "different," a sensitivity that the Statue and Ellis Island are bold reminders of...


Put back together unity and strength of a country that knows how to disagree and yet remain united in freedom.




Much has changed in these past four years.

They said - and we all knew - that it would. May these changes not remove freedom and hope but strengthen it. May these changes not make us a closed and cold people living in fear, but strengthen our resolve to live the ideals that Emma Lazarus's words on the Statue of Liberty so proudly- yet humbly- proclaim:

"Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!"