Community - Love Has the Last Word 9-11-9

Community - Love Has the Last Word
New York City

Eight years ago today vain attempts were made to destroy our national community. Fearful people, “strangers, estranged from their own past, culture and country, from their neighbors, friends and family, from their deepest self and their God”, who did not have any concept of how to offer a safe place for others to be themselves, detonated sheer terror and panic in the psyche of millions of people. The infection of fear and rage knows no boundaries, not stopping for a passport stamp and visa. Tsunami of fear washed around the world. As dreadful and horrific as the visual images of two iconic engineering marvels undergoing progressive structural collapse are; far worse is the idea that fear might actually be more powerful than love and trust, that xenophobia in any of its hideous forms might actually have the last word.

Each year at this time we are reminded of who our true heroes are. Stunning accounts in word and picture of the countless occurrence of ultimate personal sacrifice clarify again how deep and transformative love can be in building a powerful response of community. A picture of a disabled woman, being carried down 110 floors in her wheelchair by strangers is perhaps the image we should paint on the ceiling of our lives. Perhaps images of firefighters ascending with rescue gear, knowing there was no return should be painted on the altarpiece. They contain a message we dare not become refractory too, lest history repeat itself. On this ‘holiday’ I am reminded that due diligence is required to keep the fragile fabric of community from being ripped into linty shreds.

Going out for my ride at sunrise, a dense ether of fog created a rather cozy sensibility to the world, especially for the several moments when colorized to a luscious pink by the concealed sunrise. Alas, as I began my circadian journey, I could not help but notice unknown individuals had ‘celebrated’ their own anger and frustration by destroying many mail boxes, mine included. What detonated this rage that seemed best expressed by violating the sanctity of community? Was this to be my bon voyage as I set off on my world journey?

During the day others ‘celebrated’ by performing acts of exclusion, closing ranks to those unlike themselves. The magnitude of my personal pain from the experience of being excluded from something I very much wanted to be part of, by people who forgot how “to offer an open and hospitable space where strangers can cast off their strangeness and become our fellow human beings” was surprising and sobering. Subsequent e-mails confirm that many in that group are not seeing past their own intense pain and no longer feel safe with those who are different.

I have to admit to experiencing some reactive rage, despite all my ranting about community. Fortunately, nothing worse than a pointed e-mail erupted. I was excluded from something trivial, merely a social recreational outlet. For those excluded from the whole of life because they happen to be black, the opposite sex, the other religion, the other anything; the angst must be staggering; certainly as staggering as the blows that occurred when jet kerosene burned down the dreams and serenity of millions.

“We witness a painful search for a hospitable place where life can be lived without fear and where community can be found.” During our search, there are those living their lives in community who make sure the mail goes through and that we have sustenance for the journey.

In the Gospel of Luke we are presented with the most revered example of hospitality and community recorded in the world’s literature. While on a journey through a dangerous mountain pass, a man was robbed, beaten to a pulp, and left for dead in the ditch along a dusty deserted road. Several travelers with the accepted genetic and educational credentials of proper society passed along the same road and crossed over to the other side, lest any involvement or inconvenience be required of them. Another traveler, not only lacking proper pedigree, but also being blatantly ‘other’, being Samaritan, being persona non gratis, made his way to the ditch and greatly inconvenienced himself by offering hospitality and community to one left for dead. Using his own animal and his own resources, this anonymous Samaritan man insured the safe return of a hapless traveler to life and community. Xenophobia, rage, and fear did not have the last word.

When I returned from my morning ride an unknown person had celebrated this ignominious date in history by crossing over to my side of the road, carefully placing my plundered mailbox up on my porch; telling me that those who rage and destroy do not have the last word. I have not yet moved the mailbox, wanting to keep a small altar to remind me of the loving deed of the Good Samaritan who did not pass me by.

Later a neighbor, seeing beyond her own rather intense struggles and challenges, extended me true hospitality and community with her profoundly kind words and a very large bowl of the most succulent meaty soup. Suddenly, it was as if I were in the gilded opulence of Louis XV in Monaco, dining on Osetra Iranian caviar with blini served on Limoges china set on 1000 count Egyptian linen. Actually, it was better. I was being reminded that love really does have the last word.

Jesus said :”For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat; I was thirsty and you gave me drink; I was a stranger and you invited me in; naked and you clothed me; I was sick and you visited me; I was in prison and you came to me. Then the righteous will answer Him, saying ‘When did we see you hungry, and feed you, or thirsty, and give you drink? And when did we see you a stranger, and invite you in, or naked, and clothe you? And when did we see you sick, or in prison, and come to you?’ And the King will answer and say to them, ‘Truly I say to you, to the extent that you did it to one of these brothers of Mine, even the least of them, you did it to me.’”