A Post 9/11 Lent
John Michael Talbot

It has been a little over 6 months since the terrible and tragic terrorist attacks. Like millions of others, I watched the special CBS program showing the attacks that had been filmed from inside the New York Fire Department, and the World Trade Towers. I was stunned.

For many of us it was like going through this nightmare all over again. The sounds of bodies hitting the cars and overhangs outside, as they jumped to their death were shocking. (Can we even imagine how terrible it must have been on those top floors for people to consider jumping from the building as the better option?) The video of the firemen trying to find a way out for themselves, and the full view of the suffocating cloud of rubble and ash that exploded through the city streets was horribly enlightening. Through the entire program I found my self emotionally undone, both in sorrow for the lives lost, and in deep gratitude for the heroes who lost their lives that day, and those who survived.

The last living images of Fr. Mychal, and the treatment of his body after losing his life during his ministry to others especially moved me. Though I know the friars at St. Francis parish in downtown Manhattan I did not personally know him. This act of heroic sacrifice makes him one of the heroes and saints of that tragedy.

But one troubling thought kept crossing my mind: We have been so shaken by a terrorist act that took the lives of several thousand, yet this is a normal daily reality for many, and even most, around the world. Though a tragedy of major proportion, there are many more who are maimed and killed, and who live with such daily violence, as a part of life.

Think of the Middle East. Jews live with the threat of suicide bombers, and Palestinians live with military occupation, as daily realities. Can you imagine always being frightened about going out of your home, not for weeks or months, but for many years constituting the whole of you and your family's life? Can you imagine ever really getting accustomed to military troops, tanks, and helicopter gun ships patrolling the streets and airspace of your city and neighborhood?

The same could be said of the Hindus and Moslems of Pakistan and India. Then there is Indonesia and Africa. Lastly, there is violence between Christians in Northern Ireland. These are just a few of many more spots in our troubled world where death and destruction are a normal part of daily life.

I found myself grieving, not only for our nation's experience of this evil, but also for the whole world where violence and warfare has reached its highest point in recorded history. But these are not just statistics, or political/military problems to be solved. These are real people like you and me, with children, grandparents, aunts and uncles, and friends just like ours. It is a decidedly human tragedy. There are usually not many simple political or military solutions. It must start within the macrocosm of the universe that lies within the human heart and soul. It must begin within.

This greater human problem means that there must be a spiritual answer before any lasting peace can be made. Most of us live on the surface of our own lives. We rarely go deep to the very center of our existence as human beings. We get stuck in ideas and emotions, in deeply entrenched habit patterns of thought, emotion, words, and actions, and we cling to these things as if they are our deeper selves and will last forever. They will not. There is a deeper reality, that of the spirit, which constitutes our most essential person. It is beyond the description of ideas, emotions, speech, or action, but it enlivens them all once we get unstuck from this imprisoning false self and priority.

This deeper way is taught by all major religions within their mystical tradition. But only Jesus goes beyond merely teaching, or pointing to, this deeper way. He actually IS the way, the truth, and the life. He is the way out of the endless wheel of suffering. This is achieved in Christ through his Paschal Mystery where Creator and created, divinity and humanity, death and resurrected life, become mystically united in a unity beyond all explanation of ideas, emotions, words, or actions. It simply IS in HE Who IS.

So, I found myself in an emotional state that is beyond description as I mourned for all of us here on earth. I also mourned for those who have passed away still stuck in this illusory form of human being. I made a journey from our major national tragedy of terrorism, to the daily tragedies of warfare and violence on planet earth with the entire human race that are proportionally even greater.

During the remainder of this Lent let us continue to pray as we process this most terrible tragedy of terrorism. Let's continue in deep gratitude for our heroes and saints. But most importantly let us devote our whole life to experiencing the rebirth found through Jesus Christ, and sharing it as a living reality with everyone we meet, and in every circumstance we find ourselves in. Then will we have learned the deeper Lenten lesson of 9/11.

John Michael Talbot