9/11 Revisited

I bet my boots you remember what you were doing on 11th September 2001. I certainly do. I was watching a ghost. Relax: I am not going gaga. I swear it’s true. Anyone can do it. Just visit the Sir John Soane House here near me, in West London’s leafy Borough of Ealing - you’ll enjoy the same experience. On video.



Sir John’s phantasm was quite talkative. Whether Carl Gustav Jung would term it synchronicity, I am not sure but, with the fateful anniversary only three days away, I feel moved to call up another ghost.



Hubristic? I hope not. Surely a priest has some claim to special rapport with the spiritual world. Besides, lots of laymen have done it before. Orpheus, Odysseus, Aeneas, King Saul, Benvenuto Cellini, Jean Cocteau…a long, illustrious list.



Gulp, whose ghost, Fr Frank?



One of the victims’. In one of the Twin Towers. Maggie, a bright young executive. Unmarried. A blonde, spunky, petite person, like Madonna. (The singer, I hasten to say.) A business & management graduate, a financial analyst in one of the firms there. A determined, ambitious, sexually active female, with plenty of hopes, plans and projects about the future. Without further ado…



Maggie What do you want from me?



Me To ask you a few questions, if you don’t mind. Do you feel anger?



Maggie No, I feel sorry.



Me For yourself?

Maggie Be sharper, priest. My sorrow is directed at the living. Or rather, the half-dead.



Me (Gulp) You mean…



Maggie You understand me. The failures. Those with a denigratory, unforgiving conception of themselves and the world. The criminally stupid, who take vengeance on the wrong people. The fanatics, who bring faith into disrepute. The superstitious: those who believe evil can be warded off by other superstitions, like bombs, human rights and democracy.



Me Er…I didn’t expect a murdered soul to be quite so sententious…



Maggie You can’t kill a soul – a cleric ought to know that. And we in this section of the Beyond are neither satanic nor seraphic. Just more lucid. Observant. And more insightful. You’d expect the dead to be, wouldn’t you?



Me I guess so. But do tell me, please, have you forgiven…



Maggie Look, I was one of those the world aghast watched jumping out of windows to escape the raging fires. The falling took a long time – it felt interminable. They are right who say dying persons see whole life passing through their mind, in a flash. In my case, the review was in slow motion. Being so absorbed, terror got nearly forgotten. It was morbid but fascinating.



Me Thoughts of…regret? Repentance? Revenge?



Maggie Regrets aplenty. Repentance is a matter between me and my Maker. Revenge, no. I am so glad. I might not have been here if I had.



Me And yet, it is said everything that has unfolded after 9/11 is at bottom a matter of taking revenge.



Maggie If it is, it proves Fr Frank has failed too.



Me I? In what way?



Maggie In what your religion teaches. Love, love, love. Forgive, forgive, forgive. Love your enemy, turn the other cheek, go the second mile. Forgive, not once but seventy times seven. I learnt that in Sunday School. America and Britain still call themselves Christian nations. Yet they have lashed out in revenge. (Though they call it something else.) You have failed. QED.



Me I suppose you have a point. But, Maggie, it’s too simple. They say Christ meant all that for special people – monks, religious and the like. We should take them as counsels, not commands, see what I mean?



Maggie Aren’t you ashamed to fall back on those smart-alecky, seminary tricks? Why can’t Christians mean what they say and do what they mean? Don’t hide your feebleness and cowardice behind these disreputable word games. Practice what your Master teaches. Otherwise you’ll convince me the last Christian died on the cross two thousand years ago. I pity you.



Me Maggie, be reasonable. Rheinold Niebuhr, the distinguished American theologian, has explained it all in Moral Man and Immoral Society. The ethics for states and rulers can’t be the same as that applying to individuals. Statesmen have responsibilities for whole communities…



Maggie Stop it! Oh, stop it! How contemptible. You priests will never learn. A long, very long atonement awaits you on this mountain, I promise you.



Me Mountain? Tell me more please. Where exactly are you?



Maggie We are forbidden to talk about that. And there is no ‘where’ in the invisible world. You ought to know something about the seven-storey mountain, anyway.



Me Hmm…Purgatory, eh? Not quite Anglican doctrine but it makes a lot of sense. But look here, surely you, of all people, realise the need to combat terrorism. To save lives. That is what Western leaders swear they are doing.



Maggie Terror on terror generates more terror. The war on terrorism is failing. It’s already lost. Anti-terrorist legislation, military interventions in Afghanistan & Iraq were supposed to make the world more safe. To undermine extremism. Instead, the invasions are rallying points for terrorists worldwide. The empire is being struck back. What a sad, tragic mess!



Me Gosh, Maggie, I’d never thought Twin Towers employees would speak like CND activists. But be fair: what could Bush do?



Maggie He could fire the neo-cons from his administration, for one thing. But let us leave party politics out of this, shall we?



Me Why don’t you tell me a bit more about yourself. Where did you live? And what of your family, your boyfriend, sex, things…you must miss them.



Maggie I lived in New Canaan, Connecticut. Like London’s stockbrokers’ belt to you. A wealthy, privileged world. My family I shall see again, I know that. My boy friend, well…he was not kind. Cruel, in fact, like many of you men are. Good riddance. As to sex, if you really want to know, dear all-too-curious priest, it was only a titillation. Here we are destined for better things. But I admit to missing Ginger, my tabby cat, sometimes.



Me Are you alone?



Maggie Never. Even in penitence one never is. And I look forward to future social joys beyond compare.



Me How do we get there, dear Maggie?



Maggie There is only one gateway to Heaven: love. There can be no others.