The planes hit the towers that morning – fly into them, dead on – and then disappear in a cloud of sulfur and smoke. The guy with the camera is shaking, saying holy shit over and over again, holy shit, and the electric shock of such reckless evil is enough to make the entire country sit down, head in hands.
But in the third floor classroom at my Midwestern Christian college, we are unaware that anything has happened.
All we know is the early morning sun, the first-week-of-school briskness, the fresh academic planners on our desks. The professor, rosy-cheeked and chirpy, prays for the day and then launches into a list of insultingly simple questions about our Freshman Seminar required reading, Boundaries.
Boundaries, that quintessential Christian book on emotional health, promises to teach readers “when to say yes, when to say no, and how to take control of your life.” In my memory, the cover bares the image of a white picket fence with a heart-shaped hole in its gate, but Amazon shows me a low rock wall instead. The wall is downright quaint. It separates green grass from more green grass from beautiful blue sky. Boundaries.
What I am learning at 8:30 in the morning on September 11, 2001 is that the happy freedom of the Christian life can be mine if only I build a low, sturdy wall around the beating center of my heart.
At mandatory 10:30 chapel, there are murmurings, but nothing I can quite piece together into story. And then, finally, they turn on the news. They put it on the giant screen in front, and in place of the usual worship song lyrics and announcements, there is smoke and fire and all manner of chaos.
“Boundaries help keep the good in and the bad out,” write Cloud and Townsend on page 31 of Boundaries. On the screen, planes crash. The buildings dissolve and then reassemble themselves so we can feel the impact of the crash again and again.
“Boundaries help us distinguish our property so that we can take care of it,” the book continues. And it occurs to me that evil doesn’t give one shit about your pretty little brick walls, your property. Sometimes evil just crashes into you, and your patch of perfectly-maintained interior landscape is scorched in the resulting brushfire of grief.
*
It has been eleven years now, and I am thinking about all that I have built around myself.
During my year of therapy, I learned a lot about saying no, a lot about self-care and about creating a kind of sustainability for my own soul.
But as I walk to the edge of my gated heart to hang a white ribbon in remembrance of that first September 11th, I wonder about these walls I have built. Are they really about health, or are they about comfort? In my effort to be well, have I insulated myself from the sharp grief of the world?
So much of the way that I interact with others in their grief is ritualistic. I bow my head to say a quick prayer. I make a meal, drop it off. I write a check or stuff full a bag of used clothes. I put a dollar into a metal can for disabled Veterans, stick the blue flower they give me into my button hole, and promptly forget all about it.
I watch the footage of that day in September, cry a little, flip to the next channel, forget all over again.
In becoming my own heart’s gatekeeper, choosing what is “good” and what is “bad,” what to let in and what to keep out, I think I might have missed the point.
It is, after all, the hard things that make us softer. More full of grace. More like our Jesus. The things that I am so determined to keep out – the pain and grief and mess of other people’s lives – those are the things that Christ let all the way in.
And maybe the best way to honor this day, September 11th, eleven years later, is to step out from behind our walled-in hearts. Maybe we can honor the grief and pain of the past by being brave enough to enter someone’s grief in the present.
Grief, after all, is grief, no matter the magnitude or the news coverage or the shock value. Pain is pain. The world is cruel and hard and ambivalent towards our efforts to protect ourselves, and maybe the bravest thing we can do is walk into someone else’s suffering heart and just stay.
You’ll, of course, feel useless…like there’s nothing you can do, so why should you be there at all? Don’t worry: that means you’re in the right place. Sit down. Don’t say anything. Set out the dinner, but don’t force her to eat; pack away the leftovers with care. Stay until the house is quiet and the lights have dimmed; stay through your discomfort and your pain and your awkwardness. Leave only when it’s time to go.
This is how we change a culture steeped grief: by climbing up over the low, brick walls of our own boundaries and into each other’s pain. We change culture by saying yes when it would be easier, healthier, more comfortable to say no.
We hoist our lanterns and walk humbly. We move one step at a time across the surface of a fire-scorched world, hands out, heart beating loud and unprotected in our chests.
Photo from Creation Swap
“Maybe we can honor the grief and pain of the past by being brave enough to enter someone’s grief in the present.” Yes. I love that call to action. What a beautiful way to remember a tragedy. To step towards the tragedies and sadness around us right now.
The connections you made here are so thought provoking, Addie. Thank you for sharing.
Thanks so much Stephanie.
Thank you for this challenge, meditation, and call to discipleship. Part of my church’s vision statement is, “We are a community of prayer that engages suffering.” I think we can still set up healthy boundaries as we engage suffering and expose ourselves to the worst that this world has to offer. However, too often “healthy boundaries” just become an excuse to keep the hurting at arm’s length. As we engage suffering in our community, we’ve found that even those who are hurting want to help others as well. It’s a beautiful thing to see those who are suffering ministering to others in the midst of their pain.
What a beautiful mission statement. I agree about the healthy boundaries in interacting with suffering (judging from some of these comments, I wonder if I wasn’t very clear on that.) But I am aware of the ways I’ve used my own boundaries as an excuse not to let people all the way in. Thanks for taking the time to comment!
Probably more my fault since I was reading as fast as I could. Ethan was making his “build up” noises before crying…
I do not think we care much about other people’s pain and heartache. Either we do not care or we are not courageous enough to do something. They look all the same to the hurting. I think it is easy to find people hurting in this world don’t you think? We all hurt but who is brave enough to show up to look around at your hurt.
We have got to be willing to do what you say Addie, but uncomfortable enough to show up; to be there in the ugly; to be there when the evil is pounding on a friend; to be there not to solve it but to support. We know that God does not give what someone can not handle so they do not need us to handle if for them… they need us there to come along side as they work through the pain and the heartache and the doubts.
Will we?
Great thoughts, Mark. Thanks for sharing.
I have heard that most New Yorkers don’t like to talk – really talk – about 9/11. And I’m sure any sweeping generalization about all of New York (come on, now) is bound to be inadequate, improbable. But it’s true of me – I usually avoid social media and dislike the long-distance pageantry and politics wrapped around the solemn remembering of families broken and brave lives lost. But this, today, has left tears running down my face. Thank you for this quiet, honest, life-giving tribute today, Addie. It spoke deep to this heart.
Thanks so much for this Annie. I tend to feel the same way about these things…feeling all this pressure to feel the right way and express the appropriate amount of emotion in the appropriate way. It was good for me to think about these events in the context of my actual, real life and what it means to remember in an active, healing way.
Addie Zierman is the best writer on the Internet. Period. Y’all treat her well
Oh Bernard…
Sorry, I’ll shuddup
‘“Boundaries help us distinguish our property so that we can take care of it,” the book continues. And it occurs to me that evil doesn’t give one shit about your pretty little brick walls, your property. Sometimes evil just crashes into you, and your patch of perfectly-maintained interior landscape is scorched in the resulting brushfire of grief.’
Oh, dear. Thank you for this. I am hooked on pretty little brick walls. Sometimes a false sense of security is so tempting. But yes, everything you said.
They are awfully pretty, aren’t they, those brick walls. I can’t blame you for being a little bit hooked on them.
Beautiful, beautiful reflection, Addie. I’ve never read Cloud and Townsend’s book. But as a social worker, I’m a huge proponent of healthy boundaries- healthy being the operative word. And I can’t think of anything healthier than purposefully and lovingly entering someone’s pain and grief. We need to see one another and care for each other the best we can. Boundaries give us the tools for self-care and not being taken advantage of but they shouldn’t insulate or numb us from life. Funny how this is crystal clear in my interpersonal relationships but somehow is lacking when it comes to days like today. I will always remember what happened that day but part of me wishes I could forget it each anniversary. I don’t always want to pick at that scab but I’m not the only one affected by 9/11. We all were, some more than others. And for that reason, it is important to continue, as you say, hoisting the lantern.
Yes. I’m a big fan of boundaries too…I think that knowing when to say “no” is an important part of healthy relationships. But I also think that I’ve gotten really good at saying “no” to things that I shouldn’t maybe be dismissing so casually. I think that I sometimes confuse “hard” and “unhealthy.” Just because something feels difficult and a little bit draining doesn’t mean it’s not to be let into my heart.
This one is hard for me. I firmly believe in setting boundaries in most circumstances…but once real grief is involved, I can’t help but go into motion. I often don’t have the words, but I can’t help but step forward and make a meal, clean a house, walk someone’s dog, or rock their baby. I jump right through those boundaries to walk side by side…even when I don’t have anything much to say. I know my actions have to speak enough…
I think this is a misunderstanding of boundaries. Cloud/Townsend wouldn’t advocate being divorced from the pain of others or turning a blind eye to their problems. Boundaries give you the tools to wisely give your YES or NO, depending on the circumstance.
Yes, and this is absolutely nothing against Cloud/Townsend or their book. This post was less about building healthy relationships than it was about the nature tragedy and grief and my personal response to it.
The stone fence is a great metaphor for how to operate in your daily relationships and how to choose which activities to say “yes” to and which to say “no” to. But like all metaphors, it has its limitations. Sometimes I think that we are called to choose the health of someone else’s soul over our own and trust that God will fill us up.
Unlike the Blahger, I think that my response to real grief tends to be retreat. I want to learn to move toward other’s pain instead of away from it, not because I have anything tangible to offer or to try to fix the situation, but because those are the places Jesus went.
Hi, this is one of my first times visiting Deeper Story and I love it. Some of these stories rock my world.
Yours, too.
I have a friend who doesn’t know if she should drive 4 hours to be with her childhood best friend who has incredibly severe and Stage 3 or 4 breast cancer. When should she go, when will she be needed, when would she be in the way?
And I say, “just go!” Go down there not expecting anything. Just go.
Today I finally asked her, “if your roles were reversed, would you want her to be with you?”
“yes.”
“then, go!”
Great advice, Gianna. That’s what I would say too.
“You’ll, of course, feel useless…like there’s nothing you can do, so why should you be there at all? Don’t worry: that means you’re in the right place. Sit down.” That whole paragraph, Addie. This whole piece. I just want to tape it to my heart and let it sink in.
I’ve been on the receiving end of the dropped-off meals, and the used-up clothes, and the sitting and staying and saying nothing because there’s nothing to say. When I’m in a place of need – tangible, emotional, God-give-me-a-miracle need – those small interactions carry a world’s worth of weight. Even when you just step a toe over the comfort boundary into my hard stuff, it matters.
Thanks for these kind words, Amanda, and for the beautiful insight. I love this: “When I’m in a place of need – tangible, emotional, God-give-me-a-miracle need – those small interactions carry a world’s worth of weight.” Yes.
Funny thing about life and learning, maturing into wisdom. Sometimes we have to learn things to survive one turn of the spiral that is our life – and then un-learn them (or learn them differently) in another. Boundaries are important – most especially for women raised to believe that there are none. But sometimes, as you so beautifully put it, we need to choose the hard rather than the healthy thing, and step right over the fence and into the middle of someone else’s pain. Thanks for these thoughtful words on this particular day.
Addie – I passed by all the 9/11 posts in my RSS feed except yours. The empath within me doesn’t want to revisit the horror and tight-chested dread that filled my morning over a decade ago. Real people. Real death. I can’t go there again.
But somehow, I knew that your treatment of it would be gentle, and would touch my heart speaking softly into my current situation. So I opened your story and let it seep in. And I was right.
“and maybe the bravest thing we can do is walk into someone else’s suffering heart and just stay.”
Yup. One of my best buddies just lost her dad. Suddenly. I don’t need to try to fix her or soothe her wounds. I don’t need to do or say anything, really. We’ll just go on a long bike ride. We’ll take off our shoes and splash in the creek. I’ll listen to the stories of her dad a hundred times and never tire of them.
I will walk into her suffering heart and just stay … for as long as her boundaries are comfortable with me doing that.
Dang, girl! You’re the best! Tx.
Thanks so much Jim. I’m so glad that this felt like an honoring way to speak of that day and that it spoke to you. I love the way you spent time just listening to your friend. Yes, listening. Letting each other tell our stories. So important. Thank you.
As a New Yorker, the daughter of a fireman, a niece of a fireman who was in the towers when they came down, Thank you. I don’t really like to talk about September 11th but I still get angry on the date when people seem so oblivious. I realize I shouldn’t expect everyone to feel the same way they did 11 years ago, that wouldn’t be healthy but simple recognition of the day with no punditry or grandstanding is comforting. For me it is never patriot day. And its always about the people that died, the ptsd my father still deals with. Thank you for your calm, wise words.
Deidre, thanks so much for this kind comment. I agree — I don’t really know what “patriot day” means. I just know what it felt like to me on that day.
I am so sorry for the pain you’ve faced here and the way this day has so radically altered your daily world. So glad you found something…however small…here.
Just stay.
This moved me deeply today – I have just written a post about being hardcore and how actually, soft is the hardest sometimes.
Thank you for this.