Elinor Mosser of the PresbyNet staff has sent this note:

On September 11, 2002 we are going to open the live chat room called "Hope and Pray Together" where people can stop by between the hours of 8:00 a.m. and 10:00 p.m. Eastern to chat, share feelings, reflections etc. At 10:00 p.m. Eastern we will have a worship service.

If you would like to assist by being present in the chat room during a portion of the day, or if you would like to assist in the worship service, we would love to have you do either. If you would like to help, email me and I'll invite you to the private planning meeting!

Please feel free to advertise the event to friends, your church, on websites or email lists. A link to the meeting where the chat will be, which you can email to people or put on a website is www.ecunet.org/topic/hope_and_pray_together

Writer and Witherspoon board member Barbara Kellam-Scott reflects on the meaning of 9/11 in light of the date's long-established significance in her own family's life. This date last year was not a time for nuances, she acknowledges - but remembering the nuances is perhaps more important now than ever. That, and enjoying a small, deep pleasures and goodness of life.

The Rev. Alex Awad, a Methodist minister who teaches at Bethlehem Bible College, takes a thoughtful look at Christian attitudes toward Muslims -- from the perspective of one who lives in Israel/Palestine, with Muslims as friends and neighbors.  Hostile evangelical rhetoric condemning Islam is doing harm, he says, to the cause of Christ among Muslims.

An editorial from the Minneapolis Star-Tribune

[9-11-02]

One year ago the United States joined the rest of the world in experiencing the terror that comes with vulnerability. And the rest of the world stood with us.

A somber editorial in this morning's Star Tribune ("our" paper here in Minneapolis, 'way up north) sums up the sad decline since then.

"So much opportunity was wasted: the chance to link the pain Americans felt after Sept. 11 and the pain others in the world feel every day; the chance to knit the United States tightly into the world community; the chance to enlist NATO and other allies in a genuine quest to rip up terrorism by its roots.

"And it's a shame, for Bush's immediate response to Sept. 11 was superb -- brimming with great expectations. His execution of the military response also showed promise. Now, a year later, look at the American image in the world: Thanks to Washington's my-way-or-the-highway approach, it could hardly be lower."

Yet the American people have learned, the editorial goes on, that we really are a part of a larger world, and that we must find new ways of relating to that world.

It concludes:

A failure of the churches? Or a victory for complacency?   [9-9-02]

A lengthy and provocative essay on Beliefnet, based largely on a recent study by Barna Research (which is based in an evangelical background but is increasingly critical of the realities of conservative church life). 

Also:

Peter Sawtell, Executive Director of Eco-Justice Ministries, echoes Barna's analysis that a large part of the "failure" of American religious communities to have a moral impact after 9/11 rests on the refusal of lay people to accept the challenges presented by the crisis.

[Originally published on Sat, Sep. 07, 2002; posted here on 9-9-02]

The Mennonite Church USA is encouraging its congregations to fly "peace flags" as an alternative to American flags to mark the one-year anniversary of Sept. 11.

Religion News Service, as published in the Charlotte Observer, reports that the white peace flags feature the words "Pray for Peace, Act for Peace" in green letters.

Ervin Stutzman, the church's moderator, explained, "We don't want to underestimate the impact that Sept. 11 had on many of our neighbors, or thumb up our noses in disregard for the insecurities it creates or the patriotic responses it elicits. But as we share the pain of those losses, we also need to think through some alternatives we can offer for how our country should respond. We don't want to mindlessly support a retributive response ... but work for a way to build understanding and reconciliation."

[received 9-6-02, and posted here on 9-9-02]

+ The first anniversary of the terrorist attack on NYC and DC is now 5 days away. What can I add to the conversation? I think GROUND ZERO needs to continue to be a sacred place. It needs to be hallowed ground. No particular organized religion can do this. The government can't. It can only be done by "the people." "The people" are creating something new and different. Some call it "the New Age." Some call it "the New Paradigm." Some call it a "spiritual awakening." But once a label is applied, it is no longer "the work of the people," the definition of the word liturgy.

Not far from GROUND ZERO is the United Nations building. The UN began operations in 1945, the year the atomic bomb was used to destroy 2 Japanese cities. Those two cities have both set apart hallowed ground for the world. Now, New York City has an opportunity to join them by allowing GROUND ZERO to remain a place where "the people" can come together somehow to share a vision of a peaceful world, of everybody getting along, of religious and ethnic and class intolerance disappearing because "the people" simply won't stand for it anymore. There's work to be done, not constructing new twin towers, but constructing a global village based solidly on love.

Stanley M. Hauerwas, professor of theological ethics at Duke Divinity School, has recently said, ''I find the lack of dissenting voices to the current outrage of Americans about September the 11th, and the resulting attack on Afghanistan, to be absolutely horrendous.''

He and Frank Lentricchia, a professor of literature and theater studies at Duke University, have edited a new collection of writings, ''Dissent from the Homeland: Essays After September 11,'' that is being published on Wednesday, Sept. 11, in a special edition of The South Atlantic Quarterly. In the journal, 18 theologians, philosophers, and literary critics speak out against the war on terrorism. Hauerwas and Lentricchia explain in their introduction that ''this war has ... seen the capitulation of church and synagogue to the resurgence of American patriotism and nationalism.''

Check out a review in the Boston Globe.

A Florida sixth-grader came up with a brilliantly simple idea for peace education: a national campaign (like the successful anti-litter campaigns of a few years back) to convince kids that violence is "nerdy and uncool." Shani Abergel's ideas were originally published in the book Young Voices: Breaking the Cycle of Violence, and are excerpted in InnerSelf.

The rescue workers at the World Trade Center are legitimately celebrated as heroes, but it turns out that they were not in a position to enter the area with informed consent. Governmental agencies--local, state, and federal--assured them and nearby residents that they were safe, when in fact there were all sorts of hazardous materials in the air. They might have gone in anyway, but they were not given the full story.

"Fallout: The Hidden Environmental Consequences of 9/ll" by Juan Gonzalez points out that the collapse of the Twin Towers released a lot of asbestos and fiberglass from the building, lead from personal computers, and other toxics. State and federal officials put a clamp on information; Christie Todd Whitman on 9/18 assured New Yorkers that their air was safe to breathe and their water safe to drink. The Centers for Disease Control compiled statistics about coughing and eye irritation in people near the disaster, but took three months to issue an inconspicuous report.

When rescue workers were sent into the site, EPA regulations for asbestos exposure were not followed. More than 200 firefighters are on medical leave, and many others have what is called "World Trade Center cough." Gonzalez, who reported some of this for the New York Daily News, tells how his editors backtracked after Rudy Giuliani, the Chamber of Commerce, and Christie Whitman raised a fuss; the New York Times reported nothing. Gonzalez has a full- length book coming out on the issues, also entitled Fallout, published by the New Press.

This excerpt is in the September 16, 2002 issue of In These Times.

"Leap" is a poetic essay by editor/writer Brian Doyle, recalling reports by two witnesses of seeing two people leaping from the south tower of the World Trade Center, holding hands as they fell.

It has been published in The American Scholar and Utne Reader, and you'll find it on the Web in the PBS site.

Your WebWeaver can offer no better thoughts than these as the day approaches.

We welcome your thoughts as 9/11 draws near. 
Just send a note.

[9-3-02]

A few weeks ago we posted information about "Let Love Ring!" - a program started in Nashville, TN, aiming to encourage communities around the nation to commemorate September 11^th with activities affirming world community.