The Lord said, “What did you do? The voice of your brother’s blood is crying to me from the ground. You are now cursed from the ground that opened its mouth to take your brother’s blood from your hand. When you farm the fertile land, it will no longer grow anything for you, and you will become a roving nomad on the earth.” Cain said to the Lord, “My punishment is more than I can bear! – Genesis 4:10-13 (CEB)
On Thursday it will be September 11, the anniversary of the 2001 attacks. I have shared some of my memories of that day before, and others have shared their recollections with me as well. More than looking back this year, though, I find myself thinking about the continual process of memory. What does it mean to us today to continue to remember that date on our calendars? Contemporary science tells us that human memory is not like pulling a file from the hard drive of a computer. Rather, whenever we remember something our brains re-assemble the experiences and sensations of the event we are remembering. Each time we remember it is created anew, as a new experience. Memory, then, is a living event that brings the past into the present moment. It is a re-membering, or putting back together. How might remembering the violence of that day move us in new directions today, not just looking back in grief and anger but looking towards the hope of peace for today?
This month as we have the Season of Creation, the theme points us to the connection between peace and care of creation. Remembering September 11 is to be reminded of the forces of destruction in this world that can engulf us. There is a nihilistic streak in humanity that is willing to destroy and wreak havoc. This tendency can be pointed at other humans; it can also be aimed at creation. Indeed while the horror of the 9/11 attacks is in how fully enveloped by that destructive impulse were, that streak is present in all of humanity. All too often and all too thoughtlessly, we participate in the destruction of the good world that God gave us. To be clear, the scale is vastly different. I am not saying that all of us are terrorists. There is something deeply horrific in those attacks. Yet violence is deeply interwoven into humanity, and we are unwise to forget this reality.
The biblical account of Cain and Abel is unfortunately underappreciated. It is the story of Adam and Eve’s two sons. It is the account of Cain murdering Abel. Cain was a tiller of the ground; a farmer. He made his living by nurturing the soil and bringing fruit from it. Yet after his act of violence soaked the soil with Abel’s blood, the land cried out against him and God declared that the earth would no longer yield its bounty to him. His violence rendered him unable to continuing in a nurturing role, so that instead his life became one of wandering and struggling against the land itself. This speaks to the ways that we to this day see ourselves as battling against the land and creation rather than as part of it, tending to it that it might sustain us. It is a story of our violence separating us from the goodness of creation. It is a story that reveals our need for the Prince of Peace to quell the destructive tendencies within us and reconcile us to the goodness of creation as well as restoring us to harmony with one another.
As we remember the violent impulses of our human past – whether Cain or the 9/11 attacks – may we look towards the new path that the Prince of Peace gives to us, to restore our connection with God, one another, and all of God’s creation.