They are sped

Fifteen years ago I worked as an administrative assistant at an aerospace company in Grand Rapids, Michigan, while Erica was studying to become a pastor. I supported the division that wrote software for flight management computers, including the Boeing 737. It was just a job; I aspired to other things. I wanted to teach literature. So in an effort to make myself appear more well-rounded for graduate school applications, I had enrolled in an advanced undergrad class on John Milton’s poetry that met Tuesday and Thursday evenings at Michigan State University.

Around this time fifteen years ago, I would’ve arrived home after class, which we still had because (in the worlds of our professor) we shouldn’t let fear dominate what we did with our lives. Most of that day was a fog. I remember that morning frantically trying to confirm what we’d heard, that planes had been flown into both towers of the World Trade Center, that another plane had crashed into the Pentagon, and realizing that our infrastructure couldn’t handle the information demand. I remember crowding with my coworkers into conference rooms, watching the fruits of our labor having been used for destructive ends. I remember learning which of my colleagues had family in New York, whose children had promising careers in the World Trade Center, who could not be reached. I remember cries of horror as the towers collapsed before our eyes.

And so I ended up going to class, probably learned some insightful things about Milton’s poetry and the period leading up to the English Revolution. I’m pretty sure we didn’t read “Lycidas” that day, but it’s what sticks with me when I think about September 11, 2001, and its aftermath. The poem is an elegy for one of Milton’s classmates, who died young. It’s a pretty standard poem for the period, elevated by Milton’s near-sublime ability to craft poetry. But near the end of the poem, something weird happens: St. Peter arrives — and he doesn’t mourn Lycidas. Instead he excoriates the Church of England and the monarchy for their failings and warns of existential threats to Christianity in England.

I think of St. Peter’s words in relationship to September 11, 2001, not because of the threat to a Christian nation, however. The United States isn’t a Christian nation, even if its origins can be traced to something more than nominally Christian. Instead, this Peter’s words come to me because of what has happened since. The tragedy of fifteen years ago has been used to justify an unjust war, to create ineffective security theater, and to consolidate power. Meanwhile we have failed to meet the needs of the people. We’ve claimed to do the right thing while we’ve done the wrong thing. It’s hard to keep track of all the misdeeds we’ve justified in the name of 9/11.

Originally I was going to post these lines without context, but there you go.

Last came, and last did go,
The pilot of the Galilean lake,
Two massy keys he bore of metals twain,
(The golden opes, the iron shuts amain)
He shook his mitred locks, and stern bespake,
How well could I have spared for thee, young swain,
Enow of such as for their bellies’ sake,
Creep and intrude, and climb into the fold?
Of other care they little reckoning make,
Than how to scramble at the shearers’ feast,
And shove away the worthy bidden guest;
Blind mouths! that scarce themselves know how to hold
A sheep-hook, or have learned aught else the least
That to the faithful herdman’s art belongs!
What recks it them? What need they? They are sped;
And when they list, their lean and flashy songs
Grate on their scrannel pipes of wretched straw,
The hungry sheep look up, and are not fed,
But swoll’n with wind, and the rank mist they draw,
Rot inwardly, and foul contagion spread:
Besides what the grim wolf with privy paw
Daily devours apace, and nothing said,
But that two-handed engine at the door,
Stands ready to smite once, and smite no more. (108–131)