To Bear Witness: A Journey of Healing and Solidarity

To Bind our Wounds

114 115 To Bind our Wounds Lenox Hill Hospital, New Y ork, 9/11/2002 Throughout the centuries, those who survive disasters have offered memorials to the dead, and they have done so with different tools and different skills: Picasso did it for the victims of Guernica with oil paints. Verdi mourned the poet/patriot Manzoni with a musical masterpiece. Graveyards and public squares are full of sculpture and architecture dedicated to those we loved and those we honor as fallen heroes. Many of us, however, still record our losses and deepest sorrows with words. I’ve always been fascinated by words, by the challenge of trying to capture an essence in a well formed phrase, an image in the structure of a sentence, and then molding the flow of words so that ideas and coherent arguments emerge. There is something very satisfying - something almost inherently good - in identifying words, simple sounds with meaning, to link our most personal inner feeling with external facts and events. We create words that can withstand the pressures of reality and sustain us on our journeys of discovery into the private depths of our souls as well on our sometimes even more perilous excursions into contact with other human beings and nature itself. I’m not sure that my memory of last September 11th and the weeks thereafter is as comprehensive as I would have liked in preparing this special memorial address. But I vividly recall the verbal reaction at the time - a moral certainty on the part of leaders summarized in words suitable for centers of religious worship, or “sound bites” for the current church of the masses, the evening television shows. They offered a global philosophy based on words from a simpler era the wisdom and efforts of all cultures and races and religions in an endless struggle to find better ways to root out hatreds and end the cycles of violence, part of which exploded just two weeks ago right here, in your neighborhood, on September 11th. America has demonstrated its heart in remarkable ways in the past fortnight. There are lines of good people donating their blood and their money and their time as volunteers. We’ve had a tireless mayor lead this city out of chaos and encourage life to return to normal. The solutions that America uses in responding to the terrible terrorist acts we have endured must reflect our resolve and our power to punish and destroy those who tried to end our way of life. But as any physician knows, a surgical excision is but a tool in therapy. The first obligation is to define the root causes of a disease and know how it evolves before devising a rational therapy. Even in mental illness, one must try to understand the bases of disturbed thoughts if one is to penetrate those terrible dark areas of paranoia and hatred. I pray that our national response will be based on all the unique qualities that make America great. The world must see the heart of America, as we have seen it here in New York in the last few days. This memorial service will end with the lighting of candles; the flame has long been a symbol of the search for knowledge and truth. You, in your university years, are the new generation that must carry on that search, and you now know that, here in New York, you are no longer alone. You have lived through an incredible period that binds us together. It is important that you go forth in confidence and in love, using the power of the mind and heart rather than the tools of revenge and violence. I wish you well in this difficult but essential endeavor. 116 117 again struggles in a search for a way out of a war mentality and towards a new era of peace. We should also learn from Lincoln that the way forward cannot be based merely on violence against violence. In fact, if our society is ever to regain security and tranquility, there is no safe way forward based on vengeance and no possible way if we fail to see - and address - the wrongs that prompted our adversaries to their actions. In that Second Inaugural Address, at the end of a bitter and long conflict, wearily but wisely, President Lincoln said that the only way forward was “with malice towards none, and with charity towards all.” For almost a century and...