Remembering

Sitting here thinking about and remembering.  8:46 am September 11, 2001.  The first plane.

We remember.

I sit in my living room and see a picture of my hand in Chuck's and it is dated, December 24, 2018

I remember his death

I see the angel Susan bought me fifteen years ago on a cruise to the Caribbean

I remember the fun

I see another angel my mother gave me that was in her living room

I remember our family time in that room.

I see the piano that was purchased in 1966 when we moved to Birmingham Michigan.  And then my parents gave it to me in the 80's.  

I remember playing alot of Mozart

These memories are here always represented by token,s souvenirs, pictures, furniture.  The memories of twenty years ago come every time I look at the TV or the news on the phone.

It is the fulness of life to remember the tragedies, the deaths, the life events.  I sit and remember and know the blessing of having loved deeply and enjoyed friendship and family life.  There is also a blessing in being an American in times of shared loss.

Twenty years ago I was pastoring the church in Bowling Gree.  When I heard the news I immediately know taht we had to meet in the church that night to pray.  We did and continued every Tuesday night for a year with a prayer service. I remember spending that week writing a sermon in my head and finally delivering it on Sunday.  I still have it - about Jesus response to evil.

I will live this day with an awareness of that event that shaped so many lives - leading to war and more loss.  Our country carries grief and trauma that continues to this day.

And yet - like my life - there is always an undercurrent of goodness and love that is flowing. The media tells stories of heroism in the moment and changed lives and circumstances afterward.  Evil never has the last word - nor does tragedy or death.

I listened several times this week to a podcast by Rob Bell about "How to open your heart."  He said we close our heart when we believe we can't start over and we open it as we receive the goodness of life.

So, I remember today.  I dip down again into grief and I come up to gratitude for the gift of this new day and the blessing of remembering all of it.

I found this poem by Mary Oliver.  It speaks to today

“The Uses of Sorrow”

(In my sleep I dreamed this poem)

Someone I loved once gave me

a box full of darkness.

It took me years to understand

that this, too, was a gift.