As the soot and dirt and ash rained down, we became one color.
As we carried each other down the stairs of the burning building, we became one class.
As we lit candles of waiting and hope, we became one generation.
As the firefighters and police officers fought their way into the inferno,
we became one gender.
As we fell to our knees in prayer for strength, we became one faith.
As we whispered or shouted words of encouragement, we spoke one language.
As we gave our blood in lines a mile long, we became one body.
As we mourned together the great loss, we became one family.
As we cried tears of grief and loss, we became one soul.
As we retell with pride of the sacrifice of heroes, we became one people.
We are The Power of One.
We are United.
We are America.

This is a beautiful and terrible vision. It holds utter darkness and shining light in dynamic tension. Tragedy brings us to our limits and to our knees, and in that common but horrible place we are one. Ordinary people rise above the petty concerns of the day. Sorrow makes us kin.

Extraordinary tragedy brings forth uncommon valor and nobility of character from people in all walks of life - office workers, firemen, poets and doctors, military regiments and student musicians - all of them gave of themselves for the common good.

In the letter to Timothy we are called pursue righteousness, godliness, faith, love, endurance, and gentleness. We are counseled to do good, to be rich in good works, generous, and ready to share. These are the things that keep a person spiritually fit, and a nation full of life that is real life.
Generosity and a readiness to share strengthen the core of a country. And we have seen that generosity of spirit over and over again in these past three weeks.

We have been shaken out of our complacency by the attack on our country. As we shift through the rubble and re-examine our life and times, we have the opportunity to be conscious - to choose a more excellent way. But first we must grieve. This is why we opened the liturgy with the Resurrection Anthem from the Burial Office.

Yes, we need to respond to the threats of global terrorism, they are a real and present danger. But we also have to understand that no matter how much we long to move forward, to do something in response, that mourning moves at its own pace. We are faced with the horror of our national loss, and our collective grief, AND the ordinary demands of everyday life - all this, at the same time.

I feel inside my own skin the look I have seen on the faces of families who come to me in quieter times to plan a funeral for someone they have loved who has just died. Grief grabs us and moves the pillars of our unconscious. The structure of our life sways as invisible changes take place at our very foundation. And it takes time for these changes to rise to conscious thought.

I want to share the story of the beginning of one young man's awakening. His name is William Harvey. He is an 18 year-old student studying at Juilliard in New York City.

William writes:
Yesterday I had probably the most incredible and moving experience of my life. Juilliard organized a quartet to go play at the Armory. The Armory is a huge military building where families of people missing from Tuesday's disaster go to wait for news of their loved ones. Entering the building was very difficult emotionally, because the entire building (the size of a city block) was covered with missing posters. Thousands of posters, spread out up to eight feet above the ground, each featuring a different, smiling, face.

I made my way into the huge central room and found my Juilliard buddies. For two hours we sight-read quartets (with only three people!), and I don't think I will soon forget the grief counselor from the Connecticut State Police who listened the entire time, or the woman who listened only to "Memory" from Cats, crying the whole time. At 7, the other two players had to leave; they had been playing at the Armory since one and simply couldn't play any more.

I volunteered to stay and play solo, since I had just got there. I soon realized that the evening had just begun for me: a man in fatigues who introduced himself as Sergeant Major asked me if I'd mind playing for his soldiers as they came back from digging through the rubble at Ground Zero.

"Masseuses had volunteered to give his men massages, he said, and he didn't think anything would be more soothing than getting a massage and listening to violin music at the same time," William went on to say.

At this point in the story, I thought, this is too surreal. This has to be one of those Urban Legends someone has cooked up to try to make sense of the senseless. An attempt to find meaning in the face of horror. But we do not need fairytales at a time like this, we need to hear the truth.

So I went on the internet and found the web site of the 69th Armored Division. I read their daily dispatches and confirmed that William is a real person and that this story is more than a story, it is the truth.

William's story continues: So at 9:00 p.m., I headed up to the second floor as the first men were arriving. From then until 11:30, I played everything I could do from memory: Bach B Minor Partita, Tchaikovsky Concerto, Dvorak Concerto, Paganini Caprices 1 and 17, Vivaldi Winter and Spring, Theme from Schindler's List, Tchaikovsky Melodie, Meditation from Thais, Amazing Grace, My Country 'Tis of Thee, Turkey in the Straw, Bile Them Cabbages Down.

Never have I played for a more grateful audience. Somehow it didn't matter that by the end, my intonation was shot and I had no bow control. I would have lost any competition I was playing in, but it didn't matter.

The men would come up the stairs in full gear, remove their helmets, look at me, and smile. At 11:20, I was introduced to Col. Slack, head of the division. After thanking me, he said to his friends, "Boy, today was the toughest day yet. I made the mistake of going back into the pit, and I'll never do that again." Eager to hear a first-hand account, I asked, "What did you see?" He stopped, swallowed hard, and said, "What you'd expect to see." The Colonel stood there as I played a lengthy rendition of Amazing Grace, which he claimed, was the best he'd ever heard. By this time it was 11:30, and I didn't think I could play anymore.

I asked Sergeant Major if it would be appropriate if I played the National Anthem. He shouted above the chaos of the milling soldiers to call them to attention, and I played the National Anthem as the 300 men of the 69th Division saluted an invisible flag. After shaking a few hands and packing up, I was prepared to leave when one of the Privates accosted me and told me the Colonel wanted to see me again.

He took me down to the War Room, but we couldn't find the Colonel, so he gave me a tour of the War Room. It turns out that the division I played for is the Famous Fighting Sixty-Ninth, the most decorated division in the U.S. Army. (AND a unit in existence since the Revolutionary War).

He pointed out a letter from Abraham Lincoln offering his condolences after the Battle of Antietam...the 69th suffered the most casualties of any division at that historic battle. Finally, we located the Colonel. After thanking me again, he presented me with the coin of the regiment. "We only give these to someone who's done something special for the 69th," he informed me. He called over the division's historian to tell me the significance of all the symbols on the coin.

As I rode the taxi back to Juilliard...free, of course, since taxi service is free in New York right now...I was numb. Not only as this evening the proudest I've ever felt to be an American, it was my most meaningful as a musician and a person as well.

At Juilliard, kids are hypercritical of each other and very competitive. The teachers expect, and in most cases get technical perfection. But this wasn't about that. The soldiers didn't care that I had so many memory slips I lost count. They didn't care that when I forgot how the second movement of the Tchaikovsky went, I had to come up with my own insipid improvisation until I somehow (and I still don't know how) got to a cadence. I've never seen a more appreciative audience, and I've never understood so fully what it means to communicate music to other people.

And how did it change me as a person? Let's just say that, next time I want to get into a petty argument about whether Richter or Horowitz was better, I'll remember that when I asked the Colonel to describe the pit formed by the tumbling of the Towers, he couldn't. Words only go so far, and even music can only go a little further from there.

Your friend,
William Harvey

It is true, words and music can only go so far. But faith can carry us even when music and words fail. Petty arguments and senseless competition have no lasting place in a people that value real life. Self-indulgence pales when compared to the power of self-giving love. Terrorists taunt us to sink into savagery. They tempt us to mirror their hatred or to mimic their acts. But God calls us to shield the innocent, soothe the suffering, and bless the dying. God calls us to clothe the naked and feed the hungry.

We stand on the threshold of an historic opportunity. We are the strongest nation power in the world. What we do has tremendous influence on the rest of the world. May we be so open to wisdom and grace, that the chasms we cannot cross by our own might, might be bridged by the power of God. Let us also lean on our God for comfortr and let tears by mingled with all our other thoughts and feeling. We must grieve as well as act, and God is with us there, too. For we are one in the spirit. We are one in the Lord.