The following is taken from the service I wrote for the six month anniversary of September 11 which was March 11.
Chaplain Charles Flood

We remember, marking time in the ways of humankind, a continuing moment of sorrow caught up in our hearts, in our souls and in our nation. We are carried on the wings of our own thoughts and our own remembrances.
Our time is history. God's time is eternity. Yet it is in the remembrance; it is in the sorrow; it is in the grief that we can honor those who came before us and find those who were lost. It is in our tears; it is in our confusion; it is in our emptiness that we can be once again filled with hope and faith.
We are surrounded by a great cloud of witnesses who suffered and who struggled. They suffered by the very circumstances of their deaths. The innocent passengers and crews of the airplanes; the employees of the World Trade Center; the managers and the workers all surround us in our hearts and in the soul of this country. They are joined by those brave public servants who rushed in to save them and were themselves lost.
But in our sorrow and in our emptiness God has made spaces to fill again in our own lives. God, in God's infinite wisdom, has left these spaces within us empty. We, each and every one of us, can fill those spaces with love and courage; with devotion and caring; with nurturing and creativity.
And, so, we become the living memorials of those who died. We mark the passage of our own lives from September 11th to now and forever in their light.

The words of the 90th Psalm ring out so true to us:
1 Lord, you have been our refuge *
   from one generation to another.
2 Before the mountains were brought forth,
   or the land and the earth were born, *
      from age to age you are God.
3 You turn us back to the dust and say, *
   "Go back, O child of earth."
4 For a thousand years in your sight
   are like yesterday when it is past *
      and like a watch in the night.
5 You sweep us away like a dream; *
   we fade away suddenly like the grass.
6 In the morning it is green and flourishes; *
   in the evening it is dried up and withered.
12 So teach us to number our days *
     that we may apply our hearts to wisdom.
14 Satisfy us by your loving-kindness in the morning; *
     so shall we rejoice and be glad all the days of our life.
15 Make us glad by the measure of the days that you afflicted us *
     and the years in which we suffered adversity.
16 Show your servants your works *
     and your splendor to their children.
17 May the graciousness of the Lord our God be upon us.


No one can fill the void which is brought about be losing someone we love. God demands we leave that space because it is a place filed with love and forever linked to the souls of those who were lost. We pray for strength and courage. We know God stays with us. AMEN.
CF - 03/02