15 year remembrance - 9/15/01 Part 3

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ELCA-L/message/8731

From: PBellanboy@aol.com
Date: Sat Sep 15, 2001 10:24 pm
Subject: WTC-related prayer requests
Reply To: ELCA-L@yahoogroups.com

I'm sorry if this is a duplicate or annoying note for you. But the response in just a short time tells me this is needed and I had better set it up right.

I am a student at Union Theological Seminary in New York City, and work in campus ministry at New York University.

Even though many people have been working and struggling so hard to respond to the human tragedies of the September 11th attacks, it is so frustrating not to be able to do more. There is a great ache to do SOMETHING! I have heard this again and again. People ask "What can we send ? What can we DO?"

You probably know many of the material needs. I have been in contact with several groups of people in and outside of NYC who are unable to travel to the relief sites, and so are engaged in prayer.

In addition to all the many prayers being offered generally, they would like to pray for specific people and situations related to the WTC disaster.

Do you have a specific prayer request? Send as much detail (name, situational info) as you would like shared and prayed over, and I will forward it to these prayer groups. Please help these people minister - they are aching to help, and to share in communion with this city's suffering.

Send your prayer request to http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ELCA-L/post?protectID=093100222249070209169097163148114164134058066051113239188120242216142254099102152 Please include a brief and meaningful subject line. You can attach a photo to your email. (Your message may be edited, and photos may not reach all recipients.)

Would you like to do this kind of prayer? Please send me email addresses (of a contact person, or a group of people) and I will send you a specific prayer list. I know with an absolute certainty that this will be a comfort for people to know that you are praying personally for them and their situations.

To receive prayer requests - you will not be flooded with messages - send an email to http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ELCA-L/post?protectID=093100222249070209169097163148181088152208031218251099120143116131109211099020105140127082088124241215002153038

May God bless you and sustain you. May God be at work in our world for the end of terror, even in response to terror. May we work for, and may God grant us peace.

Paul Bellan-Boyer

Dennis Diaz, a member of Local 100 of the SEIU, looks over the Wall of Prayers September 13, 2001 at the entrance to Bellevue Hospital in New York City for 80 members of the union who are missing after Tuesday's deadly terrorist attack on the World Trade Center. All of the workers were employed at the Windows of the World Restaurant on the 106th floor of one of the towers. Jose Jimenez/Primera Hora/Getty Images, at tevenwarran.blogspot.com

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Which healing? Fourth Sunday after Pentecost

Image
This gospel lesson is difficult for preachers. Which healing do you pay attention to? Matthew 9:9-13, 18-26 Much has been made in recent years of the woman who touched the hem of Jesus’ cloak. The daily loss of her life-blood not only indicated health problems (an infection? fibroid tumors? uterine cancer?) and sapped her strength (anemia?), it made her unclean. It deprived her of touch, of entry to the Temple, of normal social interaction. For twelve years... Even in her pursuit of healing she tries to be audaciously inconspicuous. The healing she finds in Jesus restores her body, her spirit, and her place in the community. It is difficult to ignore the story the daughter raised from the dead. The brief descriptions in the gospel lesson are easily filled out by imagination and experience. Children continue to die, by accident, illness, and violence, and the chord this sounds is recognizable, resonating deep in the soul. The death of a child strikes hard, on the family and also on the
Read more

Who do you think you are?

Image
Sermon for the 15th Sunday after Pentecost Romans 12:1-8 Matthew 16:13-20 As I listened to the lessons for today, it seemed to me that identity issues are prominent. Jesus asks his disciples "who do you say that I am?" Have they been paying attention? Are they aware of what’s going on? The apostle Paul is also concerned with a couple of identity issues: using the different gifts given to each member, and also finding or forging a new identity, as members of the body of Christ. One reason these "identity issues" stood out for me is that I have been reading a book about the management style of the Jesuits, an organization within the Roman Catholic church. The author, trained as a Jesuit before leaving for a career as an investment banker, makes the case that the thing which has allowed the Jesuits to be a successful 450 year old company, is their focus first of all not on what they do, but on who they are. Their core strength as an organization originates no
Read more

Up in the Air - Sermon for Easter 7

Image
The following sermon was preached in James Chapel, Union Theological Seminary in New York City, at a communion service preceding commencement, May 17, 2002. While many of the references are particular to the setting, the general themes (where to look for God; the awkwardness of losses, in-between times and transitions;it remembering our own stories in light of vocation and mission) are transferrable to other settings. One explanatory note: the chapel was decorated in part by cords hung at irregular places throughout the space. Graduates and other Union students had been invited to hang from these cords symbols from their time at Union (a backpack, theology books, a stethoscope, baby clothes, a chaplain's vest from the WTC recovery), requiring partipants in the service to take note of them and also negotiate their movements around the objects. Up in the Air So when they had come together, they asked him, “Lord, is this the time when you will restore the kingdom to Israel?” He repli
Read more