The Bonfire of the Vanities

For the ninth time, September 11 has arrived with remembrances of the bright, clear morning in 2001 when the date became so much more than a number. Like most people who were in New York, I can remember a minute-by-minute account of that morning. Each year the nation spends a few hours speaking about the unspeakable horror of that day, and I think back to that frightening experience.

This year's observance has been disturbed in advance by twin controversies. In Florida, a person who leads a small congregation has dominated every newscast with promises of burning copies of the Koran on September 11. In New York, a businessman has purchased a building in the Lower Manhattan vicinity of the World Trade Center site, and seeks to build a community center which includes a prayer room for Muslims. Neither of these projected activities is particularly surprising.

I've lived in rural Florida, and have known people whose ideas about following Jesus are profoundly different from my own. I've also known that sort of person in every other place I've lived. In the early 1970's, I remember an usher in the church foyer with a handgun, watching in case a black person tried to worship there. In the 1980's, I remember an evangelist who convinced the teenagers to burn their record albums because he could hear evil messages when they were played backwards. (I suggested that they just refrain from playing their records backwards, but that didn't seem to suffice.) In the early 1990's, I remember some people who rallied at a school board meeting because the reading program they had adopted for that year included a cartoon dragon character, which they claimed was a satanic plot.

I've also lived in New York, and have seen how diverse each neighborhood is. I saw an interview with the businessman who was planning to build the commmunity center. He was born in a Methodist hospital in Queens, to a Polish Catholic mother and an Egyptian father. He belonged to the Jewish Community Center in his neighborhood, and hoped to create a similar facility in Lower Manhattan. And I remember that many Muslims were among the victims of September 11.

My reflection about God's God-ness includes a heavy dose of awe when considering God's creative power. Throughout history, we are at our best as a human race when we are creating, because we are honoring God through imitation. Just as those of us who wish to follow Jesus must imitate him by feeding the poor, healing the sick, visiting the imprisoned and caring for widows and orphans, so must those who worship God seek to express and admire creativity and beauty, for although we "see through a glass darkly," we can still hope to serve and experience God to some delightful degree through them.

Any reading of the Old Testament gives ample evidence of God's destructive ability. But it is only awe-inspiring as a matter of scale. We can all easily destroy, just not on the massive scale of a plague or flood. But (quoting Jesus), "consider the lilies," and see that scale is not part of the awe-someness of God's creative power. Whether creating a neutron or a planet, God's creativity is overwhelming to behold, and impossible to fully comprehend. By expressing our own creativity, we are serving God by trying to imitate God.

It seems to me that a fitting way to commemorate the destructiveness of humans on September 11 is through creative acts, not a destructive bonfire which is itself an exercise in vanity. We experience hope as we see the Freedom Tower emerge from the scarred ground whose address is now Zero. We watched expectantly as artists in architecture competed for the right to design the new structure. The most difficult early days were improved by the creativity evident in the plans to rebuild. And I think the creation of a Community Center is another positive expression of rebuilding by those who were affected by the tragedy. I understand the feelings of those who wish the community center were being planned for another neighborhood, but I also think that Muslim extremists can only be made more resolute by the actions of Christian extremists, with whom they have great solidarity, since they both defile the words of the Koran. They can actually be quieted by the sensible, creative actions of Muslim moderates. Every time a person who seeks God through Islam acts as a contributing, creative member of society, (as millions of American Muslims do every day,) it is a victory against the perpetrators of the September 11 atrocities, a victory that can never be won by warring Christians.

When the embers cooled after the most famous "Bonfire of the Vanities", the creativity of the Renaissance continued unabated. And if the reporters and their cameras ever leave the lawn of the church in Florida, God will continue to inspire those who are gifted with creativity, and those who seek to serve God through destruction will shortly be forgotten. Creativity, beauty and community are all fitting legacies for September 11, or for every day.