Makoto Fujimura: Praying in an Age of Lamentation

Ten years ago, on September 10th, 2001, my husband and I were finishing our last minute packing and saying good-bye to friends. We were leaving early the next morning for Scotland. We had sold our house and most of our possessions and we were moving half way around the world to follow the dream of higher education. What I could never have anticipated was that the following morning I would be greeted with the words, "I don't think we will be moving today. Terrorist's have attacked the World Trade Center." I couldn't comprehend what my husband Dave was telling me. I quickly ran to the TV and saw the footage. Neither tower had yet collapsed but the damage was clear.


I then realized that I needed to call my parents. They should know that Dave and I were still in Seattle, not on an airplane somewhere over the US. My mother was already at work but I caught my father at home. I quickly said that we were still in Seattle and weren't sure what was going to happen. He had no idea what I was talking about, until he turned on the news. As we talked we watched in horror as the first of the towers collapsed. And then he voiced what many of us thought at the moment, "Things will never be the same."


All air traffic was halted, planes in the air were rerouted to Canada, and everything was confusion and chaos. Dave got on the phone and got us booked on the next flight possible, the morning 15th of September, but there was no guarantee that planes would be back in the skies over the US by then. We spent the week watching the news, hearing military jets zoom overhead (no commercial air traffic), and talking with our friends. For that first day or two, everything was shut down: schools, government buildings, businesses. Americans sat inside their homes and waited in fear. What would happen next? 


Dave and I wondered if it was a good time to move to a foreign country. Was the US about to launch into a world war? Everything felt uncertain, but as the week wore on we knew that it was the right thing to move to Scotland. 


So we packed up our things once more and headed off to the airport the following weekend. We were there before 5AM but Sea-Tac was packed with people who were still stranded in Seattle. In line we heard stories of frustration and exhaustion as people who had been sleeping in the airport since the 11th tried desperately to get home. It was unclear which planes, if any, were leaving that day so we all stood in line waiting to hear an announcement about scheduled flights. Finally they called our flight and we got checked in at a special station. 


The first leg of our flight to the UK landed at JFK in New York. As we flew over NYC, the passengers were eerily still and quiet. Hardly anyone looked out the windows, at least on purpose. As we circled around for our landing, I couldn't help but see out the windows at the smoke rising up from the World Trade Center. Almost a week later and the fires were still burning and smoldering. To be honest, I didn't know what to think or to feel. The silence inside the airport was haunting. Here, at the point were many lives, nations, and cultures intersected, people from all walks of life were in shock. We all just sat there mesmerized by wide-spread grief and trauma. 


The rest of the trip was characterized by exhaustion and waiting, as well as a somber celebration of my birthday over a greasy breakfast in Heathrow airport. Once in St. Andrews, for at least a month we felt utterly displaced and fragmented, but nothing compared to those who lived at Ground Zero in New York or the family and friends of those who died in the attacks in rural Pennsylvania, the Pentagon, and New York City. 

Makoto Fujimura, Shalom (lithograph on thin paper)

This past summer, I encountered Makoto Fujimura's writings about his experience of life at Ground Zero. I was deeply moved by his compassion for his family (especially his son who was at school near the WTC and had to run with his teacher and classmates to escape the destruction) and others who were attempting to piece life back together after the attacks. With so much death and destruction in your own backyard, how in the world do you stay in the city and how can you ever learn to pray again (or for the first time)? Fujimura's words and paintings explore the vulnerable presence of God in such times, without expectation of response or devotion. He and his studio mate provided space for Ground Zero artists to exhibit their artistic endeavors and questioning, often works in progress that would never be finished. 


Fujimura's call to his community of TriBeCa was for Shalom, not an easy or comfortable word to live. In an essay written for Image Magazine in response to 9/11, Psalms and Lamentations: Fallen Towers and the Art of Tea (there is a longer version of this essay in Fujimura's book, Refractions), he talks of his message to his friends in the days following 9/11. He asserted that artists had a responsibility to create and point beyond the fear. 

Create we must, and respond to this dark hour. The world needs artists who dedicate themselves to communicate the images of Shalom. Jesus is the Shalom. Shalom is not just the absence of war, but wholeness, healing and joy of fullness of Humanity. We need to collaborate within our communities, to respond individually to give to the world our Shalom vision.

Prayer, lament, and creativity seem to intermingle in his imagination. In the decade since 9/11, Fujimura's own work is evidence of this call toward articulating Shalom. On the Patheos Blog Portal, Fujimura shares and explains some of his visual language of lament (although the quality of the images is much better on his website: www.makotofujimura.com). Our creativity must give language not only to our sorrow but should also articulate the greater truth of peace and wholeness. War and fear are only corruptions of the good, they are not the good in and of themselves. We must all witness to the fullness of Shalom revealed in Jesus, who is the one who came to claim us as his own. The redemptive movement of Jesus and the Holy Spirit are evident in the crazy world, if only we have the eyes to see and the ears to hear.

May we work, with all our creative energies and capacities, toward patterns of peace and wholeness throughout the created order, wherever and to whomever we are called. Thanks Mako for your vision of Shalom that transcends the darkness. May we heed the call today and every day.

And so I wish you peace. Not an easy peace, not an insignificant peace but the peace of the Lord Jesus Christ.