There will be a plethora of memorial and remembrance services this weekend.
Some will have to do with the day the Twin Towers fell. 15 years ago, on the morning of September 11, 2001 a series of four coordinated attacks on the United States left 2,996 people dead and many thousands of others injured. Planned by a terrorist group called al-Qaeda the events of that day both broke and united our nation in ways previously unimagined. We were wounded by hate; the hate we now realized others had for our way of life and the hate that welled up in Americans for others such as immigrants, people of color, and people of different faiths. The US Department of Justice defines a hate crime as “the violence of intolerance and bigotry, intended to hurt and intimidate someone because of their race, ethnicity, national origin, religion, sexual orientation, or disability.” Some have accused the very phrase “hate crime” of being “politically correct,” but I suspect the reason a hate crime is worse than a crime motivated by greed or convenience is what it does to the person who hates, the individual or community who receives the hate and the emotionally charged, often ruled by fear, response that is elicited. Hate leads to a distinct kind of brokenness.
There will be other memorials this weekend than those in response to 9/11. It was 9/12 that the Valley Fire began. And it must be noted that the Valley Fire was not the only fire in the last year that caused the loss of both homes and life.
· July 29, 2015 the Rocky fire began — by the time it ended August 14 — it took 43 homes, and 53 other buildings
· August 9 The Jerusalem Fire began — by the time it ended August 25, 2015 — it took 6 homes and 21 other buildings
· September 12 The Valley Fire began — by the time it ended October 15, 2015 — it took A total of 1,955 structures including; 1,281 homes, 27 multi-family structures, 66 commercial properties (including a school and a church building), and 581 other minor structures. And four lives.
· On August 13, 2016, 10 months and 2 days after the full containment of the Valley Fire — an arsonist started what we call the Clayton Fire. 299 buildings destroyed; including 189 single-family homes, 8 commercial structures, and 102 other structures such as sheds and smaller outbuildings. And the sanctuary of the Lower Lake Community United Methodist Church.
· On August 21 a fire erupted at a Lakeport Senior Citizen apartment complex, all 36 units were made uninhabitable for at least three weeks, two units were destroyed, three people hospitalized and one person lost their life.
These unrelenting fires have led to a different kind of brokenness than the wounds left by hate crimes, but they do share something in common. In both the days following 9/11 and the fires that created such havoc in our county over the course of the last year, the response has created a kind of wholeness as well. People have come together to express their grief and rage and pain but then also to pursue healing and resiliency and to build back better.
There is no shame in admitting that we have been broken. Only when we can understand the brokenness are we ready to seek wholeness. Remembrance is important, not to fuel the fire of hate and grief, rather to provide a way for the wounded to come together to seek wholeness; and wholeness and healing are possible!
While there are far fewer people who worship in Christian churches each Sunday than those who don’t, long ago Jesus gave us a model for understanding brokenness and wholeness that Christians can offer a community in need of healing. Christians call it Communion. The bread is broken in the liturgy and we recall the words of Christ, “This is my body broken for you.” Then the cup is poured out, “this is the cup of the new covenant which is my blood shed for the remission of sins for many, drink from it all of you.” Broken and poured out we come together to grieve, but not to grieve as those who have no hope. For brokenness is not the end of the story, hate and death and fire do not win.
Yesterday I was asked, “What tips would you give for survivors?” My answer was “community.” Apart we are lost in the brokenness but together we can find what it means to be whole again.
There will be a plethora of memorial and remembrance services this weekend. Find one to attend that is fueled not by pain or hate, but by community, hope, resiliency and a desire to be whole again. Choose commUNITY.
Rev. Shannon Kimbell-Auth is the Pastor of Clearlake and Middletown Community United Methodist Churches. She is also part of Team Lake County a collaboration of local and national non-profit organizations and faith based groups who have come together to help survivors rebuild following the fires.
