This isn’t a typical Halloween post, but it is about hallowed ground. The original meaning of Halloween is All Hallows Eve, the holy evening before All Saint’s Day on November 1. The fun side of the holiday came from pagan autumn rituals. In this post, I return to the hallowed side of the holiday.
On our trip to New York earlier this month, my husband and I and his mother took an afternoon to visit the 9/11 Museum on the site of the former World Trade Center. It was a beautiful sunny autumn afternoon, and people wandered the plaza which seemed remote from the bustling traffic around it.
Most of the museum was organized as a timeline of the events of that day, from the first strike on the North Tower, to the second on the South Tower, to the Pentagon, and the field in Pennsylvania where the fourth airplane crashed. Along the timeline, we heard the confusion of the news reporters as they tried to make sense of what they learned. We watched the airplanes hit the buildings over and over again, just as we did that morning.
And we saw the artifacts left behind, from a fire truck to a lost shoe, from employee badges to singed meeting notes of meetings that were abruptly ended.
There were quotes from people who escaped, quotes from people who lost loved ones, and quotes from first responders and those who searched the rubble.
While I walked through the museum, I remembered my visit to the Holocaust Museum in Washington, D.C., several years ago. I experienced the same sense of mourning, the same sense that the world had gone insane.
As I reflected on these two historical events, I decided that no matter how evil the actions leading to 9/11 were, that day simply wasn’t on the same scale as the Holocaust. The Holocaust was the result of a lengthy and coordinated government policy implicating thousands of participants. September 11 was the result of an evil band of terrorists, but was not sanctioned directly by any government. Six million dead versus around 3000.
Yet, regardless of the difference in scale, both events were dreadful, both showed human beings at their worst (and occasionally at their best). And both events resulted in us vowing “never again.”
When we had finished touring the museum and passed by the pools outside again, I saw a rainbow in the corner of one pool. The rainbow brought to mind God’s promise to Noah in Genesis that he would ever again flood all the earth. In that Biblical story, God set the rainbow in the sky as a reminder of his promise.
I wondered whether the rainbow in the pool where the towers once stood was a symbol that never again would we experience the desolation we felt on September 11, 2001. But I doubted it. Because September 11 was an act by human beings, not God. And mankind is far less reliable in our promises . . . if such a promise we would make.
Nevertheless, I found the rainbow to at least be a beacon of hope. It is a sign that beauty can return to ground once defined by death and desolation. And a reminder that we should pray, “never again.”
What signs of hope do you see in the world around you?
When I hold a new baby.