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The American Revolution Today: Dusty Bells

Dust ....

Dust was everywhere,”

Rev. Daniel P. Matthews proclaimed in his first sermon following the attacks of September 11, 2001.

             

The Rector of Wall Street’s Trinity Church described the plague of dust on New York as unbelievable. But he also reminded his congregation that dust had another purpose. It served as a symbol: They were not alone in their tragedy.

              

“Dust did not just fall in southern Manhattan. Dust fell over all the world on September 11,” Matthews stated dramatically. He reminded his congregation that people throughout the world were mourning with them. “Everybody is covered with the dust of the World Trade Center of September 11. None is without dust.”

              

Matthews also encouraged his audience to take comfort in the story of the bells. Through a presidential proclamation, President George W. Bush called on Americans to come together in a day of prayer and remembrance on September 14, 2001. The president’s proclamation encouraged people to pray and churches to ring their bells at noon.

               Dr. Matthews called one of the church’s engineers and asked if they could ring the bells of St. Paul’s Chapel, which is a part of Trinity’s parish and next to the site of the World Trade Center.

              

“No,” was his reply. They couldn’t do it. The church had no electricity, and the bells were electric. By this time New York’s governing authorities had also restricted access to the entire Wall Street district.

              

An hour later the engineer called Matthews back. They had done it. Mike and Jim, the two engineers, and Lyndon Harris, the chapel’s rector had risked their lives by carefully climbing St. Paul’s dark wooden bell tower to ring the bells at noon.

              

“While Jim held a flashlight, Mike found a steel pipe and ‘whacked’ the bell 12 times. Rescuers at Ground Zero removed their hats and stood in silence,” the chapel’s website later reported.

              

The bells gave firefighters, police officers, and other rescue workers on the scene a chance to attend “church.”

              

“The workers stood in silence as if to say,

‘The Lord God reigns, even in this hell,’”

related Daniel Matthews in his sermon.

 

“Sometimes in the midst of the most horrible tragedies,

     We see with eyes with which we haven’t seen before,

           At times like this a bell becomes more than just a bell;

               It becomes a sacrament.”

              

And in that sermon:

Dust became a symbol of comfort 

Bells bore the people’s atonement 

God still reigned.

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“Let him bury his face in the dust—there may yet be hope…Though he brings grief, he will show compassion, so great is his unfailing love” (Lamentations 3:29, 32)

 

Let us pray,

Father, thank you for your compassion in grief, for the encouragement of bells buried in dust that lead hearts to look to heaven evermore.

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Battlefields and Blessings: Stories of Faith and Courage from the Revolutionary War. Jane Hampton Cook, God and Country Press. 2007