wfn.org | Walking into a House of Grief

[ENS@ecunet.org]

2001-333

Walking into a House of Grief

     (ENS) In the final days of its visit to churches in the United States, a 
"Living Letters" ecumenical delegation representing the World Council of Churches 
issued a letter to summarize its week of dialogue with church leaders beginning 
November 8 at the Episcopal Church Center in New York.

     The delegation included Bishop Mvume Dandala of the Methodist Church of 
Southern Africa, and President of the South Africa Council of Churches; The Rev. 
Jean-Arnold de Clermont, president of the French Protestant Federation; Bishop 
Samuel Azariah of the Church of Pakistan; Ms. Septemmy Lakawa, Indonesian 
theologian and WCC Executive Committee member; Metropolitan Elias Audi, Greek 
Orthodox Patriarchate of Antioch and All the East, Lebanon; and  Jean Zaru, 
presiding clerk, Religious Society of Friends, Ramallah, West Bank.

     Accompanying the team were the Rev. Kathryn Bannister, moderator of the US 
Conference of the WCC and Georges Lemopoulos, WCC deputy general secretary, and 
Jean Stromberg, director of the US Office of the WCC.

     To the churches and Christians in the United States:

     Dear Sisters and Brothers in Christ,

     We have come as 'living letters' to your country. Shocked at the tragic 
events of September 11, we have come as representatives of member churches of the 
World Council of Churches, committed to the Decade to Overcome Violence: Churches 
seeking peace and reconciliation. We have come to be with you as a sign of 
compassion and solidarity in your suffering.  We have come out of our wounded 
contexts to share with you in your woundedness.  We have not come with answers; 
we have come to love you.  

     We have stood at Ground Zero and experienced it as death.  We were 
profoundly moved by the terrible silence, the colorlessness, the sense of loss.  
In that emptiness, we grasped hands and offered our prayers;  we reclaimed life 
in the midst of death. 

     It is always difficult to walk into a house of grief.  But you have received 
us with gracious hospitality in this time of sorrow, and we are grateful. In 
South Africa, there is a saying used at the time of mourning:  "What has happened 
to you has happened to others as well."  We are witnesses that God makes it 
possible for life to continue.  Many American churches have visited us in our 
difficult times to help us find a way when we have been overwhelmed with our 
grief.  We now say to you, take courage.  We have come to you as living letters, 
signs of hope in the suffering and pain of the cross.  

     During our visit, in New York, Chicago, Washington DC and Oakland, 
California, we have had the privilege to listen to different voices and words:

     We have listened to words of hurt and anger from a pastor on the front 
lines: "We are not ready to be lectured.  We still smell the smoke; there are too 
many funerals each day to be objective.  A new consciousness will arise, but if 
it is forced, it will only stoke the anger."  There is the need for space to 
grieve.  And we are ready to wait with you, in your mourning and in your healing.

     * We have heard voices of deep sadness.  We have been moved by the ways in 
which you have expressed this sadness.  This sea of sorrow also engulfs those who 
minister, who are now exhausted.  "Who will heal the healers?" someone has asked. 

     * We have heard persons speak of "joining the world": "I didn't just see my 
congregation weeping, I saw a weeping world." A pastor spoke of the 
interconnectedness of pain and suffering as he ministered to wounded and orphaned 
children in New York. "I would have liked to embrace also the children of Iraq, 
who have been wounded and orphaned. Maybe this experience of suffering will help 
us to embrace all others who suffer." 

     * We have heard people speak of fear and insecurity, from immigrants who 
came to the US for safety and freedom to peace workers who feel intimidated and 
accused of being unpatriotic.  

     * We have not heard words of bitterness or of revenge.  We have been moved 
to humility and encouraged to hear church leaders battling with questions that 
are broader than their own concerns, that take in the larger context of the 
world.  The discussion is just beginning.  

     * We have heard some asking:  "What things have been done by us and in our 
name that have made people feel such hatred for us?"

     * We have heard people speak of their ignorance and fear of Islam, but we 
also heard expressions of solidarity with Muslim neighbors.

     * We have heard people relating their suffering to the sufferings of people 
in Afghanistan and Palestine.

     * We have heard people explaining how difficult it is for some Christian 
communities to be engaged by ethical issues of the response to September 11. 

     * We have listened to a pastor in tears ask:  "How can the bombing of 
Afghanistan be the way of Christ?"

     These words did not call for answers from us. We have cried and prayed with 
you; now, together with you, we ask the questions that have accompanied our 
conversations.

     1. Where do we find the basis to be together?  What can be our common search 
in the days ahead?  We have in common to reject terrorism. We can affirm that 
military response will never bring security and peace. What kind of relationships 
with neighbors, across geographical and faith borders, need urgently to be built?

     2. How can churches be at the front line of the struggle against injustice?

     The churches have responsibility to reflect together and to name together 
the major injustices in the world.  In our encounter we have spoken of the 
destructive economic imbalances, oppression in places like Palestine, gender and 
racial discrimination, support of totalitarian regimes.

     3. How can we communicate the imperatives of the Gospel where there is a 
struggle for the hearts and minds of people?  What kind of communication, what 
images, will bind us together in community, rather than increase the gulf between 
people, as dominant media images do?  As Christians, we have been given the 
stories and invited into a community that speaks truth to power.  We say to our 
churches: listen carefully to other Christians around the world.  By allowing the 
churches to tell their stories, you give them voice.  

     4. Do we wait to speak until there is unanimity?  How do we encourage the 
prophetic voices in our midst?  

     Love unites us.  You are our sisters and brothers.  Together we are the body 
of Christ.  Let us hold hands and seek to overcome all forms of violence, direct 
and structural, in order to build a culture of peace.