Rev. Jon Overvold on listening as a tool for healing the wounds of 9/11

"May Peace Prevail on Earth"

With the fifth anniversary of September 11th approaching, I wonder how we will mark the day. My thoughts go back to the memorial service held at my hospital on the second anniversary in 2003. In that service I experienced a kind of healing through the act of listening. Listening is so basic and yet powerfully sacred. The healing I experienced is best described as a renewed sense of wholeness and unity. I recall it more often now as wars continue, divisions in the world harden and weariness prevails.

A simple observance was held in a new Peace Garden on the hospital grounds. A large, wooden, sixteen-sided pole was placed in the center of the garden with the sentence "May Peace prevail on earth" in sixteen different languages. We chose the languages spoken in the countries of known origin of those who died on September 11th. On a day when words fail . . . we listened to one another. We listened to the prayers of three great faiths. We also listened to the words of a humanitarian and scientist, Louis Pasture. It was an acknowledgement that for some staff in our medical community the “sacred texts” might be in the musings of a fellow scientist. Maybe by listening to one another and by listening to our hopes for peace and hopes for a resolution to conflict we will have our own hope renewed.

One of the attending physicians read from the Qu'ran and spoke of how hard it feels to have your faith misunderstood. Everyone listened. And then in what in my tradition would be called a Pentecost experience, we listened as 16 staff read the sentence on the pole in their own language (Arabic, Swedish, German, and even Swahili.) “May peace prevail on earth.”

Listening was really all that was happening – and in a kind of liturgy that let us hear one another and take in one another's stories and traditions, a bit of the weariness eased. Healing was realized and we discovered new ways of understanding one another.

I believe the Sacred is present and working when we listen to each other and seek deeper understanding of our humanity. And isn’t that what we as chaplains offer every day in our work with people. Creating a space where someone can be heard, some weariness eased and a small piece of our world is healed.

 

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