Times of reflection

SOUL FOOD

Yesterday was the first anniversary of Sept. 11, the day of terror

that ripped the heart and soul of this nation last year.

But, as the deadlines of a weekly newspaper must have it, I am

writing this a full week before. Sept. 11 is unavoidably and largely

on my mind, yet so are several other days of commemoration: Labor

Day, Rosh Hashanah, Grandparents Day and Yom Kippur.

I wrote a column about Labor Day that I hoped you would read on

Sept. 5. But when I realized how many churches in the city had worked

so hard and so thoughtfully to provide times and places for us to

remember what happened last year, as well as to look forward from

here, it seemed a better thing to let you know about those

commemorations.

Then my mind wandered back to Labor Day.

In many ways the American worker is losing ground, ground that was

won by the sweat, tears and blood -- literally blood -- of workers

who went before us. Columnist John Balzar described the plight of

today’s American worker this way, “Each of us must increase our

spending for goods and services and simultaneously work harder to

produce them and faster.”

As much as we need to reflect on the events and fallout of Sept.

11, I think we need to reflect on that, too. In a year when we can

use all the strength and leadership we can get, when many of our

freedoms are being undone, Labor Day scarcely seemed to honor the

American laborer as the Department of Labor intended. when it

decreed, “It is appropriate that the nation pay tribute to the

creator of so much of the nation’s strength, freedom, and leadership

-- the American worker.”

Along with Labor Day, I have thought this week of Rosh Hashanah,

its supplication: May it be your will, our God and God of our

ancestors, that the New Year be good and sweet for us.

And I have thought of my ancestors. Grandparents Day was Sunday,

Sept. 8. Many of my relationships with my grandparents were

by-and-large the stuff of wishful thinking. I wish I’d known them

all, but I didn’t. My maternal grandmother, more than anyone during

my childhood, instilled in me a sense that my life is of value. Then

I lost her to cancer when I was 13. I saw my mother’s father from

time-to-time, but my mother’s parents divorced by the time she was 9,

so I never got to know her father well. I never met my father’s

father. I met, but never knew, his mother.

As Rosh Hashanah began the Jewish High Holy Days, next Monday, Yom

Kippur -- the Day of Atonement -- concludes them. It is a day of

fasting, repentance and prayer for forgiveness of sins. It is for me

the most significant of all these recent days of commemoration,

because 14 years ago in Israel, on Yom Kippur, I came finally to

believe that there is a God and that Jesus is his son -- the Christ,

the Messiah, in English, the Savior of this world.

So this week it was to him that I offered thanksgiving on

Grandparents Day for the family that I have. It is to him I pray for

blessings on our nation’s workers. It is to him I offer thanksgiving

for our nation’s freedoms. It was to him, on the anniversary of Sept.

11, I for the safety of our nation and for wisdom for our leaders.

May he heal our nation’s heart and soul.

* MICHELE MARR is a freelance writer and graphic designer from

Huntington Beach. She can be reached at [email protected].