The only service on the Vineyard

Five years on, the Unitarian Society was the only church to have a 9/11 memorial service today on Martha's Vineyard. How quickly we forget.

Over the past few days, the media has been filled with articles about the current state of our security and the "what were you doing then" articles. Some contend that little has changed, others assert that we live in a different world today. I lament how far we have come from the feelings of love and compassion that were so common in those first days after the attack.

Often when someone close to us dies or is severely damaged, we come together to memorialize our common past and vow to make it better. Habits being very strong and we being mere mortals, we seldom succeed in keeping our vows beyond those first weeks and months. While the foibles of mankind and our personal weaknesses often result in broken vows, on a personal level we usually do not actively work against the keeping of those vows and attempt to destroy those common bonds that had been re-established. Yet, I feel that is exactly what our government has done.

It has deliberately told our allies and those wanting to be our allies to 'fuck off, we know what is best for the world and for you'. Sadly, our government did not consider what was best for its citizens. It has deliberately rejected whatever love, admiration and concern the rest of the world had for us in mid-September 2001.

Not only have our leaders pissed off most of the world, but they have demonstrated a level of incompetence and arrogance that are normally only seen on the playground. I met a lot of dodos in my career and I'm still meeting them, although not as frequently. I don't think I've ever seen the level of incompetence to which our leaders and their acolytes have sunk.

These words from Arthur Waskow, a sometime controversial rabbi, which the minister asked me to read in today's service provide some consolation and point the way to a better world:

We are the generation that stands between the fires:
behind us the flame and smoke
that rose from Auschwitz and from Hiroshima;
before us the nightmare of a Flood of Fire,
the flame and smoke that consume all Earth.

It is our task to make from fire not an all-consuming blaze
but the light in which we see each other fully.

All of us different,
all of us bearing One Spark.

We light these fires to see more clearly
that the Earth and all who live as part of it
are not for burning.

We light these fires to see more clearly
the rainbow in our many-colored faces.

Blessed is the One within the many.
Blessed are the Many who make one.