麻豆社

This week Prayer for the day is commemorating and remembering the anniversary of 9/11 talking to people impacted and involved in the recovery work at the time and within communities in the 25 years since. With Winnie Varghese the Dean of St John the Divine Cathedral, New York.

Good Morning.

In 2002, our kids began attending school in the West Village in New York City. The year before that, the school had been a harbor for children from Battery Park City School on September 11th when the World Trade Center buildings had collapsed in their neighborhood. The principal and teachers from the Battery Park City School had the presence of mind to walk their children over a mile in the smoke and dust, where they waited together in the gym for parents to come pick up their children, knowing how unlikely it was that all the parents would have survived.

They found sanctuary at that school in the West Village. I know about systems of violence and militarization, about the vilification of people that look like me in the years after 9/11, about the college students I knew that enlisted in the United States army immediately afterwards, and the ones that protested the war, about the seemingly out of control momentum of those days.

But today I remember those pupils and teachers, walking in the smoke and dust, to be greeted by other children and carers, because it reminds me of the sacred work of love of neighbor, all of our neighbors, especially in their time of need. Our sacred work to bear witness to the human costs of political agendas.

God who walks with us, who welcomes us.
We give thanks today for the protectors.
For those we entrust with our children.
For those who have the courage to help and to lead.
We give thanks for clarity of purpose and for sanctuary people.
God鈥檚 kin-dom among us.

Amen

All American spellings are intentional