eeyoresrays (![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small} eeyoresrays) wrote,@ 2006-09-11 14:35:00 |
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9-11 Guest Speaker at my School
Here is what I thought was a very strong and inclusive message about the legacy of 9-11.
Christopher Joiner in the Pastor at First Presbyterian Church in Franklin, Tennessee.
Again thank you Pastor Joiner for your words today.
http://www.fpcfranklin.org/
Student Assembly
Battleground Academy
September 11, 2006
Christopher A. Joiner
Two Roads
“Two roads diverged in a wood, and I –
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.”
I hate this poem. I guess I should get that out of the way right now. I really do hate it. Well, hate may be too strong a word. I am bored by it, and everyone knows that it is a short trip from boredom to hatred. I am bored unto hatred by it because I had to hear it again and again in English classes, in sermons, at graduation ceremonies, and, most heinously, in high school assemblies like this one. Maybe it was just in vogue during the 80’s when I was in high school, but it seemed to me that every speaker I ever heard, when speaking to teenagers, with a whole world of poetry out there like William Shakespeare or Virginia Wolfe or Keats or Joyce at his or her disposal, inevitably settled on Robert Frost, and two roads diverging into a wood and yada, yada, yada. I get it already; be your own man, don’t walk the path others walk, dare to be different. I wanted to scream, “Point taken, now could we please have some Walt Whitman?”
So you may be wondering why I have chosen this poem I hate to open yet another high school assembly on this day, five years after September 11, 2001? I wish I knew the answer. All I can say is that as I have watched the various commemorations of September 11 on my television screen, Frost’s poem has popped into my head, like a song that you hear and you just cannot get out of your head, no matter how much you may dislike the song.
I see the plane crashing into the south tower of the World Trade Center with a fireball explosion and I hear, “Two roads diverged in a yellow wood.”
I see people wandering around lower Manhattan like the living dead, covered in a shroud of dust, the papers from the obliterated offices blowing in the hot wind, changing suddenly before my eyes into “leaves no step had trodden black.”
I listen to the mothers and fathers, sisters and brothers, sons and daughters of the dead on that day as they describe the horror and loss they have experienced and, when I close my eyes, I see Robert Frost, gently intoning, “Yet knowing how way leads on to way, I doubted if I should ever come back.”
I watch all these images, I remember all the feelings of that day five years ago, and it seems to me that we all, all of us, are standing at that intersection of two roads diverging; no matter our race, or religion, or economic status, no matter if we are liberal or conservative, Republican or Democrat. We are all standing at a crossroads, two roads, clearly defined: one that leads to life and one that leads to death.
I would like you to imagine those two roads with me this morning, because they are surely there. They emerge from the rubble of the World Trade Center, the Pentagon, and that lonely field in Pennsylvania, each of them beckoning us, both roads this morning equally lay before us. Down one path lie exclusivism, intolerance, and extremism; down the other lie community, compassion, and reason. While, like Frost in his well-worn poem, we cannot see past where “the roads bend in the undergrowth,” we can rest assured that the paths take us to two different kinds of places, as individuals and as a nation: either fear, or hope.
President Franklin Delano Roosevelt, in a speech to the nation in 1933 spoke words which continue to have relevance for us today: “The only thing we have to fear is fear itself.” We remember these words, but we don’t always remember the words that came next: “nameless, unreasoning, unjustified terror which paralyzes needed efforts to convert retreat into advance.” Roosevelt was speaking to our nation when it was in the middle of the Great Depression, and only a few years away from our entrance into World War Two.
He understood that fear paralyzes, it causes us to retreat into communities of those who look like us and think like us and act like us. The final words of his speech called us as a nation to do the opposite of fear: “We now realize as we have never realized before our interdependence on each other; that we cannot merely take but we must give as well…”
When my son was around four years old, we lived on Union Avenue in Memphis, Tennessee. Now, any of you that know Memphis know that Union Avenue is a huge thoroughfare that runs through the middle of the city. It is a very urban environment. I was driving my son to the video store to rent a Barney movie and we passed a man standing on Union Avenue with a sign that said, “hungry, please help.” As we drove by, I heard my son’s little voice ask, “Daddy, what did that sign say?”
I thought about lying to him, saying that the sign says “Have a nice day,” but instead I told him.
“It says, ‘Hungry, will work for food.’”
“Should we give him money?” asked my son.
I saw this as a great opportunity to teach my son a few lessons about life. I told him that the man was just begging on the street, and he needed to get a job, that he probably was going to use the money for bad things. I told him he needed to be careful with these kinds of people, because you never knew what they might do. My son stared at me with a confused look on his face, not understanding much of what I was trying to say. No matter how many ways I tried, I could not get him to understand how fearful he should be.
We got back home, opened the Barney tape box, only to discover that the tape inside was Hell-raiser III, which meant we had to get back into the car and head to the video store. Sure enough, as we passed the intersection, there was the man with the sign. A voice emerged from the back seat: “Daddy, he couldn’t do anything bad with a Happy Meal.”
No matter how hard I tried to steer him, I couldn’t get my son to take the fearful road. All he knew to be was compassionate. My four-year-old son led his reluctant father down the better path. So we went to McDonalds, my son got a Happy Meal and I convinced him that the man would probably prefer a Big Mac, though my son did not quite understand how anyone would not want a prize. We drove up to the intersection and I handed the sack out to this man. “Thank you,” he said. “Don’t thank me,” I said, “Thank the kid in the back seat.” For those few moments, we were on the road less traveled, and it was indeed making all the difference.
September 11, 2001 has two roads that lead from it. One is the path of fear: that way leads to suicide bombs, kidnappings, and hatred of those who believe differently, or look differently, or vote differently. Fear causes us to divide into groups: Republicans versus Democrats, rich versus poor, white versus black versus Latino, Christians versus Jews versus Muslims. Listen to the debates going on in our political life as a nation and you hear lots of fear, from all quarters.
Recently, I was talking to someone who works with Habitat for Humanity. He described going and talking with a pastor of a church about helping build a house. The pastor had one question for him. “If a group of Muslims got together and wanted to build a house, would you let them?” “Of course,” he said. “Well, then, we cannot be a part of your organization. If you are a Christian organization, you should not be willing to work alongside Muslims.” That, ladies and gentlemen, is the face of fear. That road leads us to ruin.
The other road is the road of hope. America, at its best, has been a nation that believes all men and women are created equal, and that we are at our best when we celebrate our diversity and pull together as one nation. From the beginning, we have been a nation that values reason, community, tolerance, and freedom. Terrorists would love nothing better than for us to give up those values and turn on each other. They would love to see us treat each other differently based on religion or race. They would consider it a victory if we gave in to religious extremism. But we do not have to go down that path. There are far too many on that path already, and the bloodshed we see on the news every night is the evidence of the well-traveled path of fear. But we, we can take the road less traveled.
If we take the road less traveled, September 11th will be viewed by history as the day America lived up to its creed that all men and women are created equal. September 11th will be seen as the time when America came together with the world and stood for justice and peace and human dignity. September 11th will be seen as a turning point, a time when we realized there was something more important that the pursuit of riches. September 11th will be seen as the day America took the road less traveled.
Scholars say that the most effective tool Robert Frost uses in this poem comes in the final line, in his interruption of the last stanza: “Two roads diverged in a wood, and I – I took the one less traveled…” This dramatic poetic devise causes us to pause, to see, along with the poet, the two roads stretching out before us, and to hold our breath, waiting to see which one the poet will take. This day is a day to pause, to look carefully at the roads of fear and hope that wind away from us in two directions, and then to take the road less traveled.
“Two roads diverged in a wood, and I …and you… I cannot finish this poem for you. It is up to each of you to finish it. God be with you as you choose.
Here is what I thought was a very strong and inclusive message about the legacy of 9-11.
Christopher Joiner in the Pastor at First Presbyterian Church in Franklin, Tennessee.
Again thank you Pastor Joiner for your words today.
http://www.fpcfranklin.org/
Student Assembly
Battleground Academy
September 11, 2006
Christopher A. Joiner
Two Roads
“Two roads diverged in a wood, and I –
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.”
I hate this poem. I guess I should get that out of the way right now. I really do hate it. Well, hate may be too strong a word. I am bored by it, and everyone knows that it is a short trip from boredom to hatred. I am bored unto hatred by it because I had to hear it again and again in English classes, in sermons, at graduation ceremonies, and, most heinously, in high school assemblies like this one. Maybe it was just in vogue during the 80’s when I was in high school, but it seemed to me that every speaker I ever heard, when speaking to teenagers, with a whole world of poetry out there like William Shakespeare or Virginia Wolfe or Keats or Joyce at his or her disposal, inevitably settled on Robert Frost, and two roads diverging into a wood and yada, yada, yada. I get it already; be your own man, don’t walk the path others walk, dare to be different. I wanted to scream, “Point taken, now could we please have some Walt Whitman?”
So you may be wondering why I have chosen this poem I hate to open yet another high school assembly on this day, five years after September 11, 2001? I wish I knew the answer. All I can say is that as I have watched the various commemorations of September 11 on my television screen, Frost’s poem has popped into my head, like a song that you hear and you just cannot get out of your head, no matter how much you may dislike the song.
I see the plane crashing into the south tower of the World Trade Center with a fireball explosion and I hear, “Two roads diverged in a yellow wood.”
I see people wandering around lower Manhattan like the living dead, covered in a shroud of dust, the papers from the obliterated offices blowing in the hot wind, changing suddenly before my eyes into “leaves no step had trodden black.”
I listen to the mothers and fathers, sisters and brothers, sons and daughters of the dead on that day as they describe the horror and loss they have experienced and, when I close my eyes, I see Robert Frost, gently intoning, “Yet knowing how way leads on to way, I doubted if I should ever come back.”
I watch all these images, I remember all the feelings of that day five years ago, and it seems to me that we all, all of us, are standing at that intersection of two roads diverging; no matter our race, or religion, or economic status, no matter if we are liberal or conservative, Republican or Democrat. We are all standing at a crossroads, two roads, clearly defined: one that leads to life and one that leads to death.
I would like you to imagine those two roads with me this morning, because they are surely there. They emerge from the rubble of the World Trade Center, the Pentagon, and that lonely field in Pennsylvania, each of them beckoning us, both roads this morning equally lay before us. Down one path lie exclusivism, intolerance, and extremism; down the other lie community, compassion, and reason. While, like Frost in his well-worn poem, we cannot see past where “the roads bend in the undergrowth,” we can rest assured that the paths take us to two different kinds of places, as individuals and as a nation: either fear, or hope.
President Franklin Delano Roosevelt, in a speech to the nation in 1933 spoke words which continue to have relevance for us today: “The only thing we have to fear is fear itself.” We remember these words, but we don’t always remember the words that came next: “nameless, unreasoning, unjustified terror which paralyzes needed efforts to convert retreat into advance.” Roosevelt was speaking to our nation when it was in the middle of the Great Depression, and only a few years away from our entrance into World War Two.
He understood that fear paralyzes, it causes us to retreat into communities of those who look like us and think like us and act like us. The final words of his speech called us as a nation to do the opposite of fear: “We now realize as we have never realized before our interdependence on each other; that we cannot merely take but we must give as well…”
When my son was around four years old, we lived on Union Avenue in Memphis, Tennessee. Now, any of you that know Memphis know that Union Avenue is a huge thoroughfare that runs through the middle of the city. It is a very urban environment. I was driving my son to the video store to rent a Barney movie and we passed a man standing on Union Avenue with a sign that said, “hungry, please help.” As we drove by, I heard my son’s little voice ask, “Daddy, what did that sign say?”
I thought about lying to him, saying that the sign says “Have a nice day,” but instead I told him.
“It says, ‘Hungry, will work for food.’”
“Should we give him money?” asked my son.
I saw this as a great opportunity to teach my son a few lessons about life. I told him that the man was just begging on the street, and he needed to get a job, that he probably was going to use the money for bad things. I told him he needed to be careful with these kinds of people, because you never knew what they might do. My son stared at me with a confused look on his face, not understanding much of what I was trying to say. No matter how many ways I tried, I could not get him to understand how fearful he should be.
We got back home, opened the Barney tape box, only to discover that the tape inside was Hell-raiser III, which meant we had to get back into the car and head to the video store. Sure enough, as we passed the intersection, there was the man with the sign. A voice emerged from the back seat: “Daddy, he couldn’t do anything bad with a Happy Meal.”
No matter how hard I tried to steer him, I couldn’t get my son to take the fearful road. All he knew to be was compassionate. My four-year-old son led his reluctant father down the better path. So we went to McDonalds, my son got a Happy Meal and I convinced him that the man would probably prefer a Big Mac, though my son did not quite understand how anyone would not want a prize. We drove up to the intersection and I handed the sack out to this man. “Thank you,” he said. “Don’t thank me,” I said, “Thank the kid in the back seat.” For those few moments, we were on the road less traveled, and it was indeed making all the difference.
September 11, 2001 has two roads that lead from it. One is the path of fear: that way leads to suicide bombs, kidnappings, and hatred of those who believe differently, or look differently, or vote differently. Fear causes us to divide into groups: Republicans versus Democrats, rich versus poor, white versus black versus Latino, Christians versus Jews versus Muslims. Listen to the debates going on in our political life as a nation and you hear lots of fear, from all quarters.
Recently, I was talking to someone who works with Habitat for Humanity. He described going and talking with a pastor of a church about helping build a house. The pastor had one question for him. “If a group of Muslims got together and wanted to build a house, would you let them?” “Of course,” he said. “Well, then, we cannot be a part of your organization. If you are a Christian organization, you should not be willing to work alongside Muslims.” That, ladies and gentlemen, is the face of fear. That road leads us to ruin.
The other road is the road of hope. America, at its best, has been a nation that believes all men and women are created equal, and that we are at our best when we celebrate our diversity and pull together as one nation. From the beginning, we have been a nation that values reason, community, tolerance, and freedom. Terrorists would love nothing better than for us to give up those values and turn on each other. They would love to see us treat each other differently based on religion or race. They would consider it a victory if we gave in to religious extremism. But we do not have to go down that path. There are far too many on that path already, and the bloodshed we see on the news every night is the evidence of the well-traveled path of fear. But we, we can take the road less traveled.
If we take the road less traveled, September 11th will be viewed by history as the day America lived up to its creed that all men and women are created equal. September 11th will be seen as the time when America came together with the world and stood for justice and peace and human dignity. September 11th will be seen as a turning point, a time when we realized there was something more important that the pursuit of riches. September 11th will be seen as the day America took the road less traveled.
Scholars say that the most effective tool Robert Frost uses in this poem comes in the final line, in his interruption of the last stanza: “Two roads diverged in a wood, and I – I took the one less traveled…” This dramatic poetic devise causes us to pause, to see, along with the poet, the two roads stretching out before us, and to hold our breath, waiting to see which one the poet will take. This day is a day to pause, to look carefully at the roads of fear and hope that wind away from us in two directions, and then to take the road less traveled.
“Two roads diverged in a wood, and I …and you… I cannot finish this poem for you. It is up to each of you to finish it. God be with you as you choose.
