A lay service delivered by
Dennis N. Randall, August
29, 1999
Oklahoma
City Bombing Memorial Service
-- April 23, 1995
On April 23,
four days after the bombing we had a Lay lead Inter-faith memorial Service
at the First Parish Church. We were the only area church (that we know
of) to schedule a special service and invite members of the Islamic community
to join with us in morning. 
What happened in Oklahoma
City was tragic and despicable beyond words. Our hearts and prayers go
out to the victims of violence and their families.
The events of April 19th,
illuminated two sides of the human spirit - one face is that of the hundreds
and thousands of men and women who have gone into harm's way in search
of survivors - who offer aid and comfort to the injured and families of
the dead. It is present in the hearts of all who have been touched with
grief and who morn for the lives destroyed.
The tragedy also exposed
a darker region of the human soul. In the first hours following the bombing
the media, especially talk radio filled the airwaves with some of the most
unspeakable rhetoric against Arabs, Muslims and others of middle eastern
blood. Demands for a military reprisal against Arab cities were abundant.
Sadly, many of our fellow citizens were prepared to unleash the same kind
of terror we had just experienced upon innocent children, of other faiths,
in other lands.We have discovered that we are often ready to hate or seek
revenge, especially if we think that it may be in the service of our God
or our country.
My step-father, a Southern
Baptist preacher who went on to become a Unitarian minister, often told
me that, "In any moral struggle when you are prepared to use the weapons
of the enemy, against the enemy, you have become the enemy."
Hate, intolerance, bigotry,
ignorance and vengeance were the weapons of the enemy we saw at work on
that terrible day. They are tools which can not build for us the kind of
future we would wish for ourselves, or our children.
As we morn and weep for our
dead... as we comfort the living and as we search for justice... we have
more than a few questions to ask ourselves - about ourselves.
May the heavens, in our grief,
grant that we find the answers in our prayers, our faiths and our hearts."
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