Is America Possible: a 9/11 Commentary

Submitted by Greta Leach on September 11, 2007 - 6:43pm.

Greta Leach, Convener of The Beatitudes Society Chapter at Iliff School of Theology in Denver.

On this sixth anniversary of a terrorist attack on America we think back and remember where we were and how we felt. We think about how our lives and country have been transformed about those events. We remember the victims in our prayers and we hope and pray for peace.

Last year I traveled to New York City with my mother and sister. We visited ground zero and we also paid a visit to a place I was previously unaware of, St. Paul’s Chapel. This Episcopal church sits across the street from where the twin towers stood and amazingly was not harmed in the destruction. As I walked through its doors I felt like I was truly standing on holy ground.

St. Paul’s was the site of an incredible relief ministry to the rescue-workers at Ground Zero. It was a place to have a hot meal, to rest, to pray, to hold on to the humanity inside of you during such a dark time. The ministry called over 5,000 American volunteers from all over the country. When I was there four and a half years after the attack the relief ministry had ceased but ghostly reminders remained – scuff marks on the floors and pews from the heavy boots and equipment the workers wore. Four and half years later, you could also still sense the tremendous outpouring of the love of Christ in that place.

During a class on “Hope and History, a wise professor of mine, Dr. Vincent Harding, challenged my classmates and I to ask the question, “Is America possible?” He did not mean the physical borders of the nation called the United States of America. I believe he meant the idea of America.

In the last six years we have seen a storm of controversy in the politics surrounding “9/11”. We have seen “America” manipulated to justify stripping away civil rights and waging unconscionable wars. We have seen the government’s impotent response to Hurricane Katrina. It seems under policies of fear, America is utterly impossible.

But, while I lose faith in politics, I gain faith in faith. After all, people of faith, followers of Christ, have knowledge of how to drive out fear – with love. Where the government fell short on the Gulf Coast, people of faith picked up their hammers and went to work. When lawmakers fail to reach solutions on poverty, immigration, and other human dignity issues, churches respond with feeding the hungry and welcoming the strangers. And there are moments in American history, like the response of that chapel at ground zero, that teach us that there are places where only God can go, in the form of faithful disciples to provide healing and help each other hold on to humanity.

So, is America possible? Maybe. Sometimes. I don’t know. But I believe that by striving to achieve ourselves, as the body of Christ, we begin to create reality out of some of those American ideals like freedom and justice. And if this is possible so it seems that America could not, not be possible.

Then, who are Americans? Americans are those who create America.

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