RALLY AND REMEMBERANCE




I’m feeling a little torn, as we approach this weekend and the Remembrance of what has come to be known simply as 9/11. Many newscasts and some radio stations have broadcast or rebroadcast stories of that terrifying and tragic day all week. It was sad then, it is sad now. There's nothing that can change what happened, or bring back those we lost, or erase the scar from the wound on our national conscience. And so we grieve together, again, these 10 years later.

But in my little corner of the world, we’ve been working hard this week to plan RALLY DAY for the children of our church. Rally Day is the day our Sunday school classes begin again in earnest. We’ve ordered curriculum… shined and polished classroom spaces…lined up teachers. This Sunday, September 11th, is a day to celebrate the lives of little ones who are just beginning to grow into the love and likeness of a Gracious God; most of them were not even alive when the Twin Towers fell.

I’m sure there were babies born on 9/11/01. I’m sure there were some who married on that day. Maybe others started a new job. Still others heard for the first time
that someone loved them. Amid horrible sadness… love survived. Amid the tragedy… hope was born.

These incongruous themes of RALLY and REMEMBRANCE remind me of another tragic day, one on which a Lamb was slain–and the world was changed. On that day that which we also remember each year, an Innocent One won for us all a salvation we could not grasp on our own. His also seemed a senseless death, a horrible waste. Those who loved Him stumbled around in grief and yet–beauty came from those ashes.

So though I will not forget where I was and what I was doing on the morning of 9/11/01 – this weekend I choose to celebrate the young lives given to 1st Presbyterian Church as a sacred trust…to nurture in the love of God. As part of
the RALLY DAY CELEBRATION, one of my jobs in worship will be the “Blessing of the Children” and I will pray for them with all the grace God has given me, for a future
full of hope.

RALLY and REMEMBRANCE. Sunday, September 11, 2011 will be a good day to gather as the Body of Christ, to pray for those who still grieve, and to seek God’s blessing for our little ones. In your house of worship, please remember to pray for those who mourn and also for the children of the world.

IN PEACE AND JOY, Kathleen Bronagh Weller, THE CELTIC MONK

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