Five years ago today, I was sitting in the small, downstairs study in the parsonage on Nantucket Island, shopping on-line for a new coffee grinder. I'd only been on-Island for a few weeks, and was still settling in to my interim ministry there. Then the phone rang, and a few seconds later I was upstairs watching TV while the whole world changed before my eyes.
I don't have anything uniquely profound or insightful to contribute to what I'm sure will be an animated dialog regarding our national experience in the five years since that day. The President has vowed that he will never forget the lessons of 9/11, but personally I wonder whether he has learned anything at all. He also cautions us not to underestimate (or was it misunderestimate?) the "intentions of evil and ambition men." And that is advice I will certainly take to heart.
Yesterday in church, I quoted a portion of the sermon I delivered on Nantucket the Sunday following September 11, 2001. That Sunday, and the Sundays following it, represent some of the most prophetic preaching I've been called to do in 25 years of ordained ministry. If you're interested, you can find the texts of all those sermons at my Nantucket blogspot site http://eclectic-cleric-ack.blogspot.com. The text of yesterday's sermon should appear at http://www.uucarlisle.org in another day or two.
And let us all attempt to be gentle with one another today.
About Me
- The Eclectic Cleric
- Born and raised in the Pacific Northwest, sailing summers in the San Juan Islands and warding off the gloominess of the incessant winter rains by reading voraciously and drinking more than my fair share of Seattle's Best espresso. Five (count 'em) college degrees, making me an honest-to-God Crimson Dawg Duck Beaver Viking. Have served Unitarian Universalist congregations in both Midland Texas and on Nantucket Island (which made the 2004 election VERY interesting), as well as numerous other smaller UU fellowships along the I-5 corridor in Washington and Oregon. More recently, I relocated from the affluent faux rural suburbs of "the Neighborhood of Boston" (just beyond the Old North Bridge and through the woods, about five miles from the site of Thoreau's cabin at Walden Pond), to the bustling shores of Casco Bay at the southern edge of "Down East." But my ministry at the First Parish in Portland ME was cut short by a diagnosis of Lung Cancer in February, 2008. I currently live outside of Sacramento CA, retired with a permanent and total medical disability, as I battle with my disease and continue to ponder what God has in store for me next.
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