A letter from Sue Ellen Hall in Sudan
September 18, 2001
Dear Kith and Kin,
It’s still hard to believe what happened exactly one week ago as I write this note. Like those at home, many folks here were glued to CNN on TV or Voice of America and the BBC on the radio. Many Sudanese have offered their condolences to us, and we feel quite safe here. A few people left, but the local U.S. charge d’affaires (an old Sudanese hand) met with the principal of the American School yesterday and assured her that there was no need at this point to do anything other than go about our daily business. We are getting exit-reentry visas, mainly because if we do have to leave temporarily we all want to be able to get back in. Trust that they won’t have to be used.
Our thoughts and prayers go out to all those affected. We pray for the healing of bodies, minds, and spirits—and for wisdom in discerning what action to take. The meditation below was passed on by a friend (written by a friend of a friend of hers) and seems to capture some of my thoughts as well. God calls us, even in the midst of such tragedy, to have—as the Arabic elder who preached Sunday put it—quluub ‘alhuub, hearts of love.
Not easy! But living in a country that has been torn by war for close to twenty years, I see the consequences of hate and fear and violence and the unwillingness to look at each person as someone created in God’s image. It does imprison us. So we’re staying on, saddened by what happened and anxious about what might happen, but also confident in God’s love and care and still able to rejoice in the many blessings of life, especially the fellowship and friendship of folks both here and elsewhere.
I will be writing a proper note soon—just wanted to let those interested know that we’re OK .
‘allah ma’na, God be with us all
Love,
Sue Ellen Hall
The 2001 Mission Yearbook for Prayer & Study, p. 49
I Have Been Thinking
I have been thinking about violence.
I have been thinking about an airplane full of terrified women and men and children smashing into a tower full of unsuspecting women and men who were just sipping their morning coffee.
I have been thinking of the burning people jumping from the 100th floor, jumping for their lives.
I have been thinking about the hundreds of firefighters and police officers who were lost, under a collapsing tower.
I have been thinking about a husband waiting in his office for 14 hours for his wife who worked on the 104th floor, his wife who had not called, who was probably never going to call, and yet he was still waiting.
I was thinking of the man who called his mother from the hijacked plane to tell her he loved her, to remember he loved her.
I have been thinking about the debris and the dust on New Yorkers’ shoes and how shocked we are here in America, how protected we have been.
I have been thinking about all the war-torn countries I have been to: Bosnia, Kosovo, Israel, Afghanistan, and the dust on the peoples’ shoes and the debris.
I have been thinking about the people who were driven to hijack airplanes with knives and box cutters and fly them through buildings,
who were ready, eager to lose their lives to hurt other people.
I have been thinking about why, what would make people want to do that.
I have been thinking about the words "retaliation" and "punishment" and "act of war."
I have been thinking about violence, what it feels like to be nothing to someone else.
What it feels like to be a consequence of someone else’s disassociated rage, disconnected fury.
I have been thinking about the cycle of hurt for hurt, nation against nation, tit for tat.
I have been thinking about how deeply something else is required.
I have been thinking about the courage it requires to think about something other than violence as a response to violence.
I am thinking about the complexity of this and the loneliness of this and the helplessness and the sorrow that would be felt in the space where violence once was and the grief.
I have been thinking that for those of us who are living on the planet right here, right now, we must live in this dangerous space, allowing the helplessness, the grief, the sorrow to create new wisdom that can and will and must free us from this terrible prison of violence.
I urge you, each one of you, fall into this space, weep, be lost, let go, die into the grief. Inside the emptiness and the pain it will be revealed.
By Eve Ensler
