Good morning…
I pulled the three stapled pages from my mailbox at church and read his kind note. “I wanted to share this poem by Billy Collins in case you haven’t read it before. Collins wrote it in 2002 to commemorate the one-year anniversary of 9/11/01. I think it captures the heartbreak of the senseless taking of hundreds and hundreds of innocent lives.”
I brought the loving gift home and slowly read aloud the poem, a poem entitled The Names. Nearly three thousand loved ones were lost on that horribly tragic day.
“Nearly three thousand lost” was also the latest death toll shared yesterday along with devastating images from Morocco after a magnitude 6.8 earthquake struck last week. So many loved ones lost, loved ones who also had names.
Now up in the middle of the night, I discover a video of Billy Collins reading The Names himself. Tragedy by tragedy, feelings understand feelings, as heartbreaking footage helps us remember. As Billy concludes, “So many names, there is barely room on the walls of the heart.”
Today as the rubble of remote villages are sifted through for signs of life, much like the New York rubble was scoured twenty-two years ago, may we entrust into our Lord’s loving care the names we know and the names we will never know. Might we rest our exhausted selves in the breathing presence of our Eternal God?
Here is God’s everlasting promise to us all, all across the globe: I will give you treasures hidden in the darkness — secret riches. I will do this so you may know that I am the Lord, the God of Israel, the one who calls you by name (Isaiah 45:3, NLT).
…Sue…
