From the Rector

Dear Friends in Christ,

Sometimes, when trying to describe 9/11 to a 23 year-old born that year, I find myself struggling to put into words how desolating an experience it was for so many.

We had just come out of that hotly contested 2000 election when democracy seemed on trial as hanging chads and dimpled chads and the like were determining the fate of a nation. Half the country felt that democracy had failed and half felt it had almost failed. And just after that came the collapse of the World Trade Center and the eruption at the Pentagon.

The center of commerce for global free markets and the center of military power—not just for us but for the western alliance—were both hit by terror.

It’s hard to put into words how desolate it felt.

Democracy had seemingly wavered on 537 votes in one state as an electoral college reminded people that we are a republic and not a democracy—which was lauded by roughly half of us and prompted the outrage of the other half.

The free market’s and our military’s command and control centers both found themselves under assault by radicalized hate sent halfway around the globe to supposedly repay us for crimes we had committed in places we could barely find on a map.

But that’s how it is, isn’t it? We stumble into something and its consequences erupt around us to our great confusion.

When I talk to older friends who remember a time before I was born, I find myself wondering what living in such monumental times must have been like.

I talk with friends who lived through 1968 and 1969 as both Martin Luther King Jr and Robert F Kennedy were shot down by hatred. Two men promising that this nation could live up to its ideals were brought down for daring to say it might be so.

I’ve talked with those who remember earlier times too.

Those who watched Japanese zeroes hone in on the Hawaiian islands and our fleet there. Those who tried to rescue a seaman from Oklahoma who thought Hawaii the grandest adventure. I’ve talked with those who landed at Normandy so that we might do one thing: lend our blood to the fight to hold back the tide of despotic fascism.

I imagine my oldest friends might even have talked with those who might yet still share a memory with someone of a war between the states themselves. Our nation has had what we might call “godawful times.” Our nation has had times when we forgot who we were and when we’ve had the opportunity to remember that call again.

I guess I have been pondering all of this as we watch an election play out in which we think, once again, that we are a nation on the brink. Once again, we fear the rise of extremism and we fear that if we don’t get it right then all might be lost.

It might be. But we’ve been wrong before.

We’ve been wrong before.

We’ve denied the rights and dignity of our neighbor.

We’ve failed to act to protect millions of Jews, Poles, and others because of a slumping isolationism.

We’ve been content with vast disparities of wealth that led us to depressions and recessions and more.

We’ve read stories in the paper of injustices that made us queasy, briskly making our way through life and work, even as we walked by the separate but equal fountains and the colored and not-so-colored entrances to our courthouses.

We’ve been wrong before. And deep down we knew it. We knew we were called to more. We knew we were failing the world, our neighbors, or those far off, or those who would come after us.

Sin is often little more than convenience. It’s convenient to look away. It’s convenient to be jaded. It’s convenient to believe that this is just the way things are. It’s convenient to be uninformed or uninspired.

When I think back to those shocking times, they were shocking precisely because they rattled our convenient self-deceptions. They broke our spell of certainty. Fleets were sunk, trade centers engulfed, and seeming fortresses breached from the air as our myths of contentment were laid bare. Prophets were laid low and signs of the end of things ignored in the march of time.

The march of time continues. We continue to think that this may be the time when things truly break. And maybe they will. But that’s been the way of all things since the beginning.

Civilization is the veneer we lay over the human capacity to undo ourselves.

That’s the story of the garden itself.

That’s the very essence of the great Christian hope. We might yet turn. We might yet turn away from the need to demonize our neighbors. We might yet turn from ignoring our obligations to those who come after us. We might yet turn toward those whose dignity is under assault around the world and remember that we are our brother’s keeper.

We might yet turn. Or we might not. Again.

That’s the story. Sometimes we rise to meet the moment. Sometimes we fail to meet it. And through it all, we Christians are called to remain steadfast in our commitment to follow Christ. We are called to seek and serve him in all persons. Whatever we hear that pulls away from that calling is once again sin, a convenient brokenness, shearing us away from the mooring of a God-shaped, self-offering destiny.

As we watch news of attempted assassinations, war across the globe, and so much more, all we can do is remember that we have been tested before.

Sometimes we have failed. Sometimes we have met the day. But we will never find our way without a deeper commitment to that which is larger than us, that which passes human understanding.

If we rely on our wisdom alone we will find ourselves once again at the precipice of human wisdom. We will find ourselves yet again looking into the abyss of our convenience.

We’re in a time of testing to be certain. But remember this. If our test is compassion , then what is the test of those who need it?

What is the test of faith required to be a Haitian immigrant right now, for example, when you’ve fled to a place to do all that is right and find yourself a victim of slander and threat? What is that test?

If our test is to figure out how we might feed the hungry, what is the test of the hungry?

If our test is to figure out whether we should welcome the migrant, then what is the migrant’s test?

If our test is to try to find the courage to act on behalf of those facing down a tyrant’s obsessions (yet again) on the eastern front, then what must the test be for those in the way of imperial ambition?

If our test is to finally do something about gun violence, then what is the test of our kids learning about lines of sight from the windows of their classroom doors and being fitted with bulletproof backpacks?

Our convenience is the check on our will to serve the common good. At some point, our convenience is pierced. At some point, all seems to be falling. What is really falling is our capacity to ignore what must be done. The pressure builds to a place and point and potency that outstrips our ability to look away.

We are reaching such moments—of that I have no doubt. The Christian must decide when we have had enough of enough and are ready to sacrifice for the wider good. What must the test be of so many these days? If we feel our world is cracking and breaking, then what must the world feel like to those who have never had the luxury of pretending that it was ever whole or healed?

If our test is to follow Christ, then what must the test be of those who watch us and wait?

Yours in Christ,

—Fr Robert