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by Bob Reed, bbsbob@earthlink.net

Consonant with the services held in churches, schools and homes in the past several days, we too come together this morning to remember. There are very few dates, etched on the American psyche, that have led to immediate and dramatic change in the course of human history. July 4, 1776 surely was one of these. Perhaps one might include October 29, 1929, December 7, 1941 and August 6, 1945. September 11, 2001 will certainly take its place alongside of these. A new "black Tuesday" has shocked our American soul and disturbed our normal tranquility.

Within the span of an hour on Tuesday morning Americans were transported from the innocence of the Garden of Eden to the awful reality of the blazing Inferno. Hell is in our midst and we are numbed by its presence. How could human beings perpetrate such inhuman acts against other humans? How could nations rise up against nations and proclaim that war is the permissible and necessary model for human behavior? How could men and women of faith or professed faith (Christian, Jew, Muslim) exploit faith in order to huckster their own brand of hatred?

The Irish poet, William Butler Yeats, writing at the beginning of the 20th century, penned these words:

"Things fall apart; the center cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity."

These last two lines always haunt me. "The best lack all conviction, while the worst are full of passionate intensity." But I believe there is a way of turning this around. We are human beings; we are decision-makers; we are Unitarian Universalists. We are convinced of the value of the "Seven Principles." If so, then we have a calling-a calling not only to mourn with those who mourn, not only to resist the growing waves of prejudice (against religious groups-Sikhs, Muslims, Hindus-against political extremists, against those who would exploit the present situation to gain personal advantage), but also to remind the world that the Seven Principles are a "light to the nations." Justice, freedom, dignity, kindness, acceptance, truth-what ideas could be nobler than these? But we cannot simply enshrine and worship these at the level of ideas. We must exhibit the courage and the will to practice these each day of our lives. And we must encourage, yea teach, the children to practice them. Only then will we demonstrate that the best do have conviction. Only then will we kindle new hope for the continuing existence of civilization. Only then will this very small band of believers-this band of brothers and sisters-this community of Unitarian Universalists-extend its light and its passionate intensity to all the world.

We remember:

the pilots who were charged with the care and safety of passengers and
crew and from whom the control of aircraft was wrested;

flight attendants who were among the first to taste death in the horror of
the skies;

passengers who suspected and then realized minutes before impact that
their death was imminent;

victims in the World Trade Center and the Pentagon;

families of all the victims who must live with the memory of this horror
to their dying day;

heroes on the scene-police, fire, doctors, nurses, emergency crews-
some of whom gave their lives trying to save others;

those who saw no other alternative than to jump from the upper stories
of the World Trade Center;

the survivors-those at the trade center and the Pentagon-for whom
fortune granted a reprieve from death for now;

the Muslim community worldwide, who are now, more than ever, being
made victims of misunderstanding, intolerance and hatred;

Americans who are targeted in the minds of some as the evil demon;

those the world over whose hubris becomes a barrier to the addressing
of economic deprivation and human rights repression;

those the world over-men and women of good will-who refuse to
allow the forces of terror and destruction to overwhelm humanity and
to drive it to the margins of existence or to annihilation.