In fact, there will be several different words written and spoken today.
So what's left for me to say? What do I dare remember today?
Do I remember September 11th, 2001?
Do I remember September 11th, 2007? The detonation of "The Father of All Bombs" in Russia?
Do I remember September 11th, 2012? Something about violence in Libya?
Do I remember September 11th, 1973? The murderous coup of Pinochet in Chile?
What about September 11th, 1988? The St Jean Bosco massacre took place in Haiti?
What about September 11th, 1944? The RAF's murderous bombing and murder of 11,500 in Darmstadt?
What about September 11th, 1943? The liquidation of Jewish ghettoes in Minsk and Lida?
I could continue cataloging the death and murder and violence of days like today. Those words would fill page after page of soul-crushing loquaciousness.
Thing is, haven't we Americans done too much talking and not enough listening over the past 12 years? And haven't Christians of all stripes spoken too hastily about the events of September 11? Haven't we summoned pious God-talk for our own well-intended purposes, sputtering and stuttering dubious theological explanations for an inexplicable murderous tragedy?
In his beautiful book of words, Writing in the Dust: After September 11th, former Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams suggests, "when we try to make God useful in crises, we take the first steps toward the great lie of religion: the god who fits our agenda". And that's one of the things we've done in those 12 years of words.
I remember President Bush, in the aftermath of the attacks of 2001, saying, "the light shines in the darkness, but the darkness will not overcome it". He, of course, was talking about America. His words were remembering the American determination for "justice" and "peace". His words were also drawn from John's Gospel, words about Jesus as the Light of the world.
He co-opted God for his own idolatrous ends.
It's discomfiting to me to realize in the immediate and long-term aftermaths of tragedies like 9/11, that "we might be committed to a God who can seem useless in a crisis", Archbishop Williams wrote. Certainly this wasn't the god invoked after the fall of the twin towers when our leaders summoned the "wonder working power" of a deity whom we simply assumed would sanction our "crusade" against global terrorism.
We Christians know we can only be saved by a God who rejects violence. By the God who reconciles and makes peace with us, even when we are God's enemies. As Dietrich Bonhoeffer rightly said, "We can only be saved by a suffering God". The God who is with us is the God we have pushed out of the world on the cross. Not the God who would have us vanquish our enemies with "shock and awe", but a God who would have us love our enemies, even as we love ourselves.
When I set the script of today's American memory -- "remember and never forget" -- next to the words of Jesus -- forgive until you liberate -- there's something very different to say about a history filled with September 11ths.
Because, you see, September 11, 2001, was nothing unique. It wasn't special. It was business-as-usual in our violent world. "Those who live by the sword, die by the sword", I remember Jesus saying.
Our American words, though, speak very differently about today. There's the unspoken assumption of our specialness as dying Americans. There's lopsided value we have placed on American lives lost that September day, compared to the men, women, and children who die every day, every second of every day, around the world, often in circumstances at least as horrific as the terrorist attacks of 9/11. Witness Syria today.
So the important words I will remember today are less about us Americans and more about God. I'm a Christian, so my memory is very different about days like today. The suffering God of the cross gathers us, greets us, and sends us out to love and forgive our enemies. What we "remember and never forget" is the commemorative meal in which God feeds us at a table of gracious plenty. On a Tuesday or a Wednesday -- or any day of the week -- this is who we are: A people turned by the eucharistic table into friends of God and neighbors to all. Not just our own.