Each year on September 11, I listen to the voices of friends, family, and strangers rehearse their memories of the day we were attacked. The sudden news pouring through television, texts, radio stations, and phones calls, seemed unreal. The skies became silent. Our never-ending movement ended. For a season, we all lived in slow motion. As our nation mourned, the world mourned with us.
The true horror of the event began unfolding. People felt shock, fear, grief, mourning, loss, anger, and confusion. Every time I read people’s stories and listen to tributes or memorials, I am struck by the sense of shattering: a picture of the world crashing down into uncountable pieces like the shards of the twin towers. As we watched and continue to remember the horror of a world crumbling into dust, we see a glimpse of the utter brokenness of humanity.
This event, this memory is yet another echo, another reverberation, another tremor of sin that stretches across the history of the world. The utter sinfulness of sin is the undoing of all things: all joy, all love, all beauty, all peace. In every age, in every culture, in every moment, and in every person, this tremor ripples through all existence. Some people have been so aware of this darkness, this brokenness, they could not bear to leave their rooms. Or simply, they could not bare it, so they didn’t.
The tremors of this brokenness also shook many people in the 14th and 15th centuries, and they began to worship death. We can still find tapestries memorializing the danse macabre (dance of death) as groups paraded across as living skeletons, awaiting their coming repose. The horrors of plague, famine, war, and torture, brutalized much of Europe in ways that seemed random and meaningless. Faith grew cold. Hearts grew weak.
We experience of glimmer of this pain on September 11. When I reflect on that day, I remember sitting in a coffee shop with a group of ministers who were actually having a prayer meeting. Suddenly our phones lit up with non stop texts, and our prayers shifted to lamentations and cries for mercy. Two weeks later I was scheduled to do a retreat on holy fools with my close friends and academic advisors Michael and Darlene. We chose not to cancel but to remember the strange stories of fools from across the ages even as we grappled with our own grief and fear. Russia in particular has celebrated the role of these wandering fools for God whose lives seem out of sync with the rough and tumble life of the world.
When I think of September 11, I also think of the 14th century and other eras in human history when the world seemed to come to an end amidst of the terrors of the day. I also think of the horrors some people face every day of existence.
I think of Ivan Karamazov and his cynicism due partly to the evil that drowns our world each day. Sometimes it feels as though Ivan gains more followers with each passing year and each passing evil. But then I also think of Alexei Karamazov, Ivan’s brother. HIs simple faith and simple response to the world seems naive. He comes to us as a holy fool not quite fitting in the monastery and not quite fitting in the world of men.
In a world where evil seems to abound on the right and the left, we might look for a few more holy fools. Those who’ve abandoned dignity and glory and justification and have discovered the mystery of God’s love that reverberates even more strongly than the rising darkness. This love does not look or operate like evil. It comes across and gentle and weak and on the verge of failure. And yet, it glistens with the light of Christ Himself. His weak and failing love seeps beneath our sorrows, our weaknesses, our failures, and even the tremors of evil shaking the world.
Walking in His love feels a bit like falling. He unsteadies our confidences. He reorients our ears and eyes, so that finally we begin to look and act in ways that seem foolhardy. Like Alexei, we see His light and love where others see only hate and darkness. By his grace, we learn to move in this light of love even when it means failure and possibly even death. Like little children, we continue to walk in this love step by step. Slowly learning to trust. For this love can never, will never be extinguished. It is a love that walks through death and will continue pouring out life into the heart of the world until evil is no more.
I'd love to hear your thoughts.