From that campus on Long Island,
one's eyes were always drawn
down the Sound to lower Manhattan
and the twin Towers
of the World Trade Center.

They were an ever-present part
of the landscape of our most famous city.
They were a limb, if you will,
of our corporate body.

Then, came the horror of September 11th

• a perfidious attack against innocents
• thousands killed, many wounded
• fire and police officers sacrificed.

A limb had been severed
from our corporate being.
The searing pain still runs deep.
We were, and are,
a wounded nation.

It took many months
to debride that wound,
carry out the dead
remove the broken bones
of the structure
down to its shaken foundations.
and, there we stopped
and gazed into that great hole of tears.

A writer named William James
first connected this for me.
The great hole in Manhattan, he says,
represents our own woundedness.

It represents the empty void
in the hearts and lives of family members
and in the very heart of a nation
that for the first time in a generation
felt shaken, vulnerable, and afraid.

The Sunday after the horror,
Sister Pat McLaughlin, in her faithfulness,
said to us, here in this place,
"God will heal the skyline of Manhattan."

Some of that healing comes
from recognizing that,
somehow, in the mystery of life,
we can become better human beings
in our wounded-ness.

Perhaps, we can become more compassionate
and able to recognize the wounds of another

• less likely to overlook the value of people
  all around us,
  
• less likely to be concerned
  about differences of race, or status
  or wealth, or power
  
• more likely to take time for one another
  to dress one another's wounds
• more likely to come together
  as a wider community,
  a common humanity
  a unified nation.

There is much good in all that.

There lurks a danger, of course,
in that we might become a wounded lion,
out of control, in our pain.

We need a grounding, therefore:
a vision from beyond ourselves
beyond anger or fear
beyond nationalism
beyond retributive justice
on which to base our response
and our healing.

For a year and more
that open wound in lower Manhattan
has breathed and dried.

The great rubble wall,
constructed years ago
to keep the Hudson River in its place
still does its job.

But, the open wound still runs deep
and beacons for attention;

so, a contest was held
to draft a design for a new structure
to rise on the site.

The winning design is the concept
of the architect, Daniel Libeskind.

Not surprisingly, in this nation
that turns without thinking to religion
when it is wounded,
the design is profoundly theological.

The architect chose not to close
the wound of the nation.

The deep, debrided pit of the wound
is to remain
to symbolize the void
in our corporate heart,
to remember the thousands lost
and to give us access always
to our common vulnerability.

The wound remains
to make us aware of our call
to a common humanity.

One is to be drawn in
by the accessibility
to all of that hallowed wound
that we might be open
to the deep needs of humankind.

But, to climb out of the pit,
of our common wounded-ness
we need direction.
We need a vision.

In the architect's design
that vision is, undeniably, up.

Reaching far above the wound
is to rise a 1776 ft spire.
The height is no accident.

This structure will not have
the boxy, utilitarian shape
of the former towers,
but will be a sign post,
an arrow,
giving an indication, a direction
of hope and resurrection,
not to more of what was
but to something not yet known
something new
something healing
a new identity
a new being
rising out of a wounded heart.

Tonight is the eve
of the Day of the Resurrection.

We exist now in that place
between our wounded-ness
and our transformation and new life.

In God's divine attentiveness
he has joined us in the depths
of our inadequacy, obstinacy, and failure.
In Jesus's going to the cross
God experiences our deepest loss
and joins us in our tears.

During Passion Week
we read the stories of
the beating, the ridicule
the cross, the spear, the dying.

We have a brother Christ
who was broken by this world.
He has been here
in our own places of suffering,
loss and despair;

and, at the dawn
of the great Resurrection Day,
his rising to heavenly life
stands as a spire,
pointed to a heavenly vision, now;

by which to become heavenly beings, now;

rising and healing
as a transformed people, now;

to be, ourselves, sign posts
of resurrected living for all to see, now

"God will heal the skyline of Manhattan,"
said Sister Pat,
"but, even more, God will heal the human heart."

If we are to rise above our own woundedness
and become more,
and not less,
than we are,
it must be by God's vision for us,

that by his demonstrated vulnerability
and great power,

we might become

• more compassionate
  and able to recognize the wounds of another
• less likely to overlook the value of people
  all around us,
• less likely to be concerned
  about differences of race, or status
  or wealth, or power
• more likely to take time for one another
  to dress one another's wounds
• more likely to hold onto one another
  as families
  and members of this church
• more likely to come together as a wider community,
  a common humanity
  a unified nation

to serve all the wounded of the world
and to become, ourselves, thereby
healed.