On 9/11 and PTSD

A major legacy of 9/11, for me in the past seven (!) years of living in New York City, is survivor stories. A resilient community, formed from a crucible of crisis.

Just like the legacy of my own little exilic hell at City College of New York, morbidly drawn to Holocaust Studies, to survivor lit.

Survivors.
Tell me your secrets, and you will tell me my story.
Tell me your sorrow, and I will tell you my hope.

Where did it come from, your will to live, that lunatic hope?

How did you make it, against all odds? 

And WHAT. is this joy, this foreign lightness,

that surprised you when it showed up to stay?

What treasure did your tragedy bestow?

Surely, if you can survive, you can learn to live. One can hope.

*** 

Anniversary grief of any kind is a curious thing. Hard.

to any suffering friends, i pray that in these days,

in the cycle of seasons, in the recurrence and repetition,

welcome or not:

in these days, may you return not only to your hurt,

but to your Help.

your ever-present Help.

oh my friend, you are not alone.

let not your pain crush your heart.

i know you want a map of the wilderness, the mutilated world,

but traveling friends and His guiding presence,

that's all we are given.

oh, and and perishable bread for today
(but enough for a Sabbath)
and promises...

friend, we can hold hands.

i don't know how, but i do know now,

it will be okay soon.

***

at first, the stories are about surviving trauma.

then,
then, they are about surviving Post-Trauma.

the latter is the more difficult task, I think.

the former, your body does for you, on total out-of-body auto-pilot.

***

and then, you have to get back into your skin, saggy and ill-fitting and scraped now.

when it comes to Post-Trauma, you are warring against your self, and against your seemingly self-annihilating mind. you are fighting for the present, and for your right to stay there.

Living in the day-to-day, after you have met the extremes––dull. Dull, dim, dark.

Dull like your pain. Dull unlike your flashbacks.

But, oh God, those flashbacks, they are searing. Blinding.
Shocking. stunning. Unlike real-time, which is dull like paralysis.
They demand that you attend to your pain.

They say, heal. Arise. Go. onward.
They say, you are forgiven. What? is that what I really need?



Survivor stories are travelogues of traveling friends. Witnesses who have gone before. Who have found themselves ejected from the life they once knew, in a blur, and then have wandered the wilderness. Some make it out.

Thank you friends, for sharing your stories. The moment you start telling your story, you have survived the prison of your secrecy. When you were unknowable and alone after being dehumanized, it was such extremely narrow confinement.

oh, it is NOT good for man to be alone.

Thank you for your will to live.

Where others had stayed in slavery
When others had perished in the wilderness...

 Each of us cries with thankful heart, "Lord why was I a guest?"

What is there to say, but Thank You.

***

At first it is terribly dark and cold and grey. They try to fumble their way back to a lost world. lost life. lost garden. Safety was back there. Simple was back there. Plans were back there.

But it is lost. Life can only be ahead. They float on through.

Sometimes they fight.
All the rhythms that were once parasympathetic, all that was for granted, now you must fight for it.

Now you must gasp for air.

Now you must fight for joy.

Now you must wrestle in worship.

Now you must fight to live.

Don't run from the tension.






And suddenly, light. The tears have filled all the secret silent spaces, and they are refracting all the debris of your life from the tunnel's end, into a kaleidoscope.

Life is bursting into full color.

The sun has risen.

A new day has dawned.

It is Easter.

Just like He promised. I will find you. I have never forsaken you.
I descended to the dead. On the third day, I ascended into heaven.
I am seated at the right hand of our Father, where I am your strong and perfect plea.
I came that you might have life––and have it abundantly.
If you are faithless, I will remain faithful.
I will bring you safely home.

We sing a new song:

Oh, if it had not been for the Lord, we would have been swallowed in the sea.
We were so near to death. If it had not been for the Lord, let Israel now say.
You have led us well. You have saved us and safekept us.

Do you know, you can do more than survive?

You can live again.

we sleep because He loves

9. Resolved, to sleep nightly, trusting Papa God to run the universe, lying down as one who is kept in safety by the One who in His goodness daily renews the work of creation. God wore us out with His goodness today!

Because children have abounding vitality, because they are in spirit fierce and free, therefore they want things repeated and unchanged. They always say, "Do it again"; and the grown-up person does it again until he is nearly dead. For grown-up people are not strong enough to exult in monotony. But perhaps God is strong enough to exult in monotony. It is possible that God says every morning, "Do it again" to the sun; and every evening, "Do it again" to the moon. It may not be automatic necessity that makes all daisies alike; it may be that God makes every daisy separately, but has never got tired of making them. // GKC

Come Thou Dayspring

the sunrise shall visit us from on high
to give light to those who sit in darkness
and in the shadow of death,
to guide our feet into the way of peace.

// Zechariah

A child's anticipation.

tell me, if love and patient joy are the only weapons against darkness and long despair:
what is patient joy? long-suffering joy?
is hope its fuel?

:') watched this 10x this morning teehee

hope is the tree that bears the fruit of Joy, Steph said.
patient Joy... it grasps onto hope and True Promises.

so we work and watch and wait.
with hope in our hearts.
anticipation in our pee-bags.

for this season to change.

in the meantime there are yellow boots, pendulum swings, morning chocolates, and many sunrises to help you stay a child at play. to help you be certain. it won't be long.

Who then are the mourners?

The mourners are those who have caught a glimpse of God's new day, who ache with all their being for that day's coming, and who break out into tears when confronted with its absence... The mourners are aching visionaries. Such people Jesus blesses; he hails them, he salutes them. And he gives them the promise that the new day for whose absence they ache will come. They will be comforted. The Stoics of antiquity said: Be calm. Disengage yourself. Neither laugh nor weep. Jesus says: Be open to the wounds of the world. Mourn humanity's mourning, weep over humanity's weeping, be wounded by humanity's wounds, be in agony over humanity's agony. But do so in the good cheer that a day of peace is coming.

// Nicholas Wolterstorff, Lament for a Son.

Notes along a mournful mountain climb, 2.

A week into NYC, I was off and up set with the cold dawning that the climb that I had thought and hoped would end at Easter was not over. It had just begun. Until we see Him face to face, it will always just be beginning.

I have not died enough. I was crippled in the shadow of how staggeringly high the hills were yet. How fortified were my high places. How deeply rooted were my idols and fears. How those unsummoned memories were prisons still.

But He is for my joy. More joy, more freedom, more wholeness than I wanted for myself. More than all that was secured by Lyoshenka. More rest and safety, then, than he could shatter. More love, not less.

Along the way, I've wondered if I hadn't lost my way.
Why does it feel like death, if this be the path of life?
If my climb was the worthy one. How do I know?

Repentance is much more than a U-turn. Repentance is a climb. A long and arduous climb where we fight against the gravity of our sin, the weight of our flesh, and the weakness of our will. To repent is to press on, to take another step closer to the summit yet unseen. 

He leads me in Right paths. 

The Shepherd found me in the deep ravines, broken and lost. He rescued me, and restored me. He is teaching me to climb these high hills in search of the rising sun. 

Here we go, back to the mournful--but joyful!--mountain road.
Simply amazed, I am not abandoned.
You can never lose me.

You give me a cloud of martyrs--those who've died well.
SO GRATEFUL today for Jerry/RBC/Jon/Irene/Mox/M/George/Nikelle/Kev/Kash.
You give me Yourself. You died well.
You make my steps sure.
You say, die well, and so live.

you'll get there, you know.

to eternity's shore.

day at a time.

sunrise to sunrise.

I'll see to it.

gave you eyes so you could hear.

do not give up the Zion climb
see the sun overtake the Jordan valley
it says he who has an ear
let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches

The light of the dawn is upon you!

rise up, o you sleeper, awake!

come, broken and weary.
come, battered and bruised.

my Jesus makes all things new, all things new!

come, lost and abandoned.
come, blown by the wind.

he'll bring you back home again, home again!

come, frozen with shame.
come, burdened with guilt.

my Jesus, he loves you still, he loves you still!

// "all things new," andrew peterson.

come, see a man who told me all that i ever did. can this be the Christ? // john 4.29

good news! good news!
the burning light that exposes us
has become for us the light of a new day!

the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it. // john 1.5

The light of day does not discriminate.

Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you,
so that you may be sons of your Father who is in heaven.
For he makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good,
and sends rain on the just and on the unjust.

For if you love those who love you, what reward do you have?

// Mt 5

Mt. Bethel, PA. 2011 April.

So let your light shine before all men.

O LORD,

be gracious to us; we wait for you.

Be our arm every morning,

our salvation in the time of trouble.

// Is 33