Whenever I am walking across campus at the top of the hour, I love to hear the Chapel Bells ring. Now in all honesty they are not “real” bells, but electronic sounds. When the bells need to be adjusted back to accurate time-keeping, an Information and Technology Resources staff member actually does the reprogramming. About once a year I get an email from either a student or a faculty member saying that the bells are off schedule and causing problems with promptness for class. Yesterday at the Spiritual Life Fair students were talking about whether or not the bells are “noisy” were from Montgomery and how far away you might hear them. Occasionally the bells interrupt a ceremony or a lecture, but I find them—and the routine they shape—to be reassuring and a bit relaxing. The bells are a part of the fabric of our Dell and our community.
I am craving a little more routine today as September 11th rolls onto the calendar again. It’s one of those days that everyone remembers where they were when the heard about the Twin Towers and the planes and the devastation in New York City. I was in a small Arabic restaurant in Ohio. After a morning church meeting without access to media, the group of pastors I was with went to eat together and found our favorite family-owned Arab restaurant locked. The family filled us in on the events and explained that they had locked the doors because of vandalism that occurred to their business after the Trade Center parking garage explosion in 1993. It spoke to me that this family was both watching the TV coverage in horror alongside the rest of the country and worried about the repercussions for them as a family.
A dozen years later many of the folks I know are still struggling to understand the scale and tragedy of 9-11 and all of the terrorist attacks that have followed. Terrorism at its core is senseless violence. Perpetrators may feel that terrorist attacks make a point, but in reality all violence creates hatred and harms individual people and families. Many things have changed: airport security, government monitoring programs, stereotypes of fundamentalist religious groups. Other things have not: complicated politics of the Middle East, religious zealots, the need to pray for peace.
Another thing that has not changed over the centuries is the Golden Rule. Many religious traditions have a variation on what is known in the Christian tradition as “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.” In Islam: “No one of you is a believer until he desires for his brother that which he desires for himself.” In Buddhism: “Hurt not others in ways that you yourself would find hurtful.” In Judaism: “What is hateful to you, do not to your fellow man. That is the entire Law; all the rest is commentary.”
As you listen to the bells toll over the next few days, remember. Remember both the routine and the speed at which routine can be shattered. Pray for those whose lives have been touched by the tragedy of terrorism and the innocents who are always the victim of conflict…innocents on all of the sides. Pray for peace, and pray that in small and big ways you can live in ways that model peaceful living and love of neighbor.
Blessings, Stephanie