Today is September 11, nineteen years after the day that lives on as deep wound in our nation’s life. We can all remember where we were when we saw the news or saw the faces of those we love beginning to process the shock. It was a time of destruction and disaster, of innocent lives lost, both victims and helpers trying to save the victims. And this tragedy lives on in our memory: “painful to remember but impossible to forget.”

And so today we remember and honor the people – for some of us they were names and stories of people we felt deeply connected to but never knew, for others of us they were friends or family. We remember and honor the people who we lost 19 years ago. Each us was affected in our own way by the events of that day and each of us have been impacted differently by the aftermath, the road  of recovery and healing that we as individuals and as a nation have been on since. We also remember the first responders, the firefighters, police, EMTs, and the nurses and aids and staff in hospitals caring for the wounded. We remember the helpers and we feel deeply their work as we go today into our work here, in the midst of a very different but also painful disaster.

We who are wearied from this pandemic, and all that has been heaped on to it the last six months – civil unrest, hurricane and tornado, wildfire and violence; we who are in the middle of another time that will for our future selves be painful to remember and impossible to forget: we stare directly at burning buildings, at news headlines of COVID deaths, at another story of innocent lives lost, or wildfires, and can become enervated and despair.

Fred Rogers gave us an enduring bit of advice for ourselves and our children in the midst of disaster: don’t just see the whole in the world that has opened up, but widen the angle of your lens and see the menders, the healers, “the helpers” as he put it in one of his last TV appearances before he passed:

“You know, my mother used to say, a long time ago, whenever there would be any real catastrophe that was on the movies or on the air, she would say ‘always look for the helpers. There will always be helpers.’ Ya know, just on the sidelines. That’s why I believe if news programs would just make a conscious effort of showing rescue teams, of showing medical people– anybody who is coming into a place of a tragedy, to be sure to include that. Because if you look for the helpers, you’ll know that there’s hope.”

Fred Rogers

This quote was circulated a lot after subsequent disasters and once again when we entered into this time of COVID-19. And it remains important as a reminder to us:
there is not just illness and death, disaster and uncertainty, and the fear and grief they evoke. There are also helping hands, healing intentions. There are staff bucket brigading lunch trays up the stairwells to make sure hungry residents get their food and no one gets trapped on the elevator!

If we remember that healing always comes in us and in our communities (though it takes time), if we remember that helping energy always comes forth after the pain and trauma, we can rise in the energy of hope, just for today. To be a part of that work once again: the mending that comes after the tear.

May you be well and supported today, and may the blessing of God or all that sustains you keep you safe, grant you peace and fill you with all that you need, just for today. Amen.

– Rev. Joel Eaton