A Ten-Year Lament

In remembering 9/11, I find it difficult to separate the attack-- acts of evil and enormous loss-- from that which followed in our national soul, psyche, and history.  The response that came most naturally for me when I reflect on 9/11 is lament and confession.  


My hope is that this is not interpreted as an affront to the memories of those who perished in the attacks.  Rather, I would ask if the last ten years, condensed in the following, is the legacy they would want to claim.
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A Ten-Year Lament

Dear Lord,

Ten years ago our nation was attacked.

We watched it on TV.

We saw the death and the destruction.

We witnessed an act of true evil,

      The kind of radical evil that sees no difference between a soldier, a civilian, or a child.

      A hate that sees no difference between a human and a rodent to be exterminated.

We haven’t learned much have we?

We don’t seem to do well when the drums of war drown out your still, small voice.

We repaid evil for evil even as we tried to do good.

We took the fight to our enemy as we sang about how putting “a boot in their ass was the American way.”

We joked about how a nuke could solve the problem

    And prided ourselves on being the civilized ones.

We determined acceptable levels of collateral damage, the certain number of probable dead civilians that required presidential approval before an airstrike.

We started wars on shady intelligence.

We dusted off communist torture manuals and started to use them.

We committed war crimes.

We were told to shop.

We were told to remember our soldiers a certain way; and that any other way to think of them would be unpatriotic.

We compromised on the equipment our soldiers needed.

When an army specialist asked why he did not have necessary materials to protect his life, we were told that “you go to the war with the army you have,” but we didn’t get an answer as to how that applied to a pre-emptive war we started.

We low-balled the estimates and actual numbers of injuries and deaths of our own children as they fought.

We tried to make sure we didn’t see our children’s coffins in newspapers.

We had an easier time low-balling the number of non-Americans we killed.

I’ve never seen a funeral for them;

merely short videos and pictures of fathers carrying their dead, blood-stained daughters; 

and a string of white house and DoD press releases decrying the tragedy and the necessity.

This year, just shy of the ten year anniversary of the attack, we killed the man we believed to be responsible, and we received the predictable reminder that the war is indeed never-ending. 

Father, if you forgive us according to our ability to forgive, then at this point we have to trust in your grace, for our deserving of it is non-existent. May you be merciful upon us all. 

But, God If you can do something, then…

O God, the Father of all, whose Son commanded us to love

our enemies: Lead them and us from prejudice to truth;

deliver them and us from hatred, cruelty, and revenge; and in

your good time enable us all to stand reconciled before you;

through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen. (Book of Common Prayer)