Among other things, today is the anniversary of the most profound prayer I ever heard given voice.
In 2001 I was a college student. My alarm went off at 8:30, and I went and showered. My roommate was still sleeping when I returned, so I kept the volume down when I turned on the TV to check the weather. The North Tower of the World Trade Center was smoking; it was on every channel, but no one seemed to know what had happened. A few minutes later, I watched a plane fly into the South Tower.
Even now, the memory takes my breath away. Like many of you, I was numb for the next two hours, transfixed by the screen and desperate to make sense of the impossible scene playing out before my eyes. Somewhere in there was an image of the Pentagon, penetrated and smoking. Then the South Tower fell — so much smoke and ash and debris and an awareness of all the people that had been and now were not. People running and fires burning and a report from somewhere about a downed airplane in Pennsylvania. When the North Tower collapsed, I was sure I had been holding my breath for those in it.
A few minutes before 11:00 am, I noticed the time. Nothing new had been reported; all channels had been cycling between the same images and suggesting the same theories. I had a class to go to; could anyone go to class now that the Twin Towers had fallen?
I didn’t know what else to do, but perhaps there was comfort in pursuing something so oddly normal. As it happened, it was a religion course taught by Dr. Ross Brummett. I barely made it on time, and almost every seat was taken by shell-shocked and teary-eyed students. Moments later, Dr. Brummett arrived and looked long and hard at each of us. Then, in his deep bass voice, he said, “Let us pray.”
I don’t know how long we sat in that silence. It seemed an eternity as our hearts voiced their silent laments. This was certainly a moment in which the scripture was fulfilled that says the “Spirit intercedes with groanings too deep for words” (Romans 8:26 NRSVue).
Here and there were sobs and cries as our prayers broke wordlessly from our bodies. And then, at precisely the right time, Dr. Brummett’s deep voice spoke for and resonated through us all: “Lord, you know.”
And then class was dismissed with a word about support services being available and how to access them. We students melted away — back to our TV’s or on to the cafeteria for lunch or wherever we went. But together we had experienced something in that moment that enabled us to face a future that was inconceivable. Dr. Brummett had been like Moses to us in that prayer, standing in for us with God and standing in for God with us. “God knows” was the most powerful prayer that could have been voiced in that moment — as far as I was concerned. And its layers continue to resonate with me today, both in relation to the violence and evil that is done by some against others (and in the name of a god or my God!), and in terms of that deep inexpressible shock that arises at times in our lives, and we just cannot imagine how the world continues turning.
God knows.
God knows.
God knows.
And God is with you.
Peace+