9/11

My dear Friends

I am writing this 2 days ahead of time as I may not get to a computer on the actual day. Who can forget 9/11? It is embedded in our memories. I was still living with Benigna at the time, at Newton Road in Cambridge, where I lived for 16 years. It was hard to believe the reports as they came in. Thaat eveing a friend of ours, Natania came by. She was weeping as she gave me a bear hig at the door.She was concerned about the Jewish people in the twin towers but was really weeping in solidarity with the whole world. Afterwards we held a little service upstairs.

Benigna's daughter, Ruth was also with us.'There's always redemption,' she said wisely. As I knelt down to say my night prayer beside my bed that evening I suddenly remembered my friend Irene who was in New York. Something made me dial her number in Cambrdge and, miraculously, Irene answered. 'I got back from New York last night 'she said-a miracle indeed.

Retribution is never the answer. We are all thinking how misguided and utterly wrong for the pastor in America to even think of burning copies of the Koran, which can only be an incendiary gesture in so many ways. We must fuel the flames of peace, not hate.

On the Sunday after 9/11 our Parish priest preached a sermon. In it he said that there was a group of people at the foot of the twin towers and they were doing something but othere could not discern what. Going closer, they realised they were dancing.FOR THE PURE JOY OF LIVING.

Let us remember that as we commemorate this 9/11.

Shalom from
Sister Gila