Remarks prepared by Anne Mulderry for her acceptance, on behalf of the members of Sept 11th Families for Peaceful Tomorrows, of the Miranda Peace Award, in Terni, Italy on Dec. 8, 2003.

Thank you. In all humility I accept this prize given by Peacemakers to Peacemakers, and I am filled with gratitude for the joy of being with you.

Those of us in New York on September 11, 2001, up and awake in the early hours of the morning, met with a remarkably beautiful fall day, a day that might have made one say, with the poet: “God’s in His Heaven/all’s right with the world,” the words sung by the young girl, Pippa, in Robert Browning’s poem set in Italy, Pippa Passes.

Such a song could have been sung by me that day in the small village in which I live.

My home is a small house, a cottage really, in a small village about a two-hour drive north of New York City. Boston is to the West of me, also just a two-hour drive. And that’s a good thing, because my five children living in New York City and the two living in Boston could drive rather easily to me and me to them. The son in San Francisco has to fly to be with us, and does, on many occasions.

Just two months before that September 11, I had moved to this village from the nearby city of Albany, which was where our three daughters and five sons were raised. We had been blessed to have a comfortable home there in a neighborhood rich in neighbors and friends, and my children had had a grace-filled place to grow-up before college, and then career opportunities took them away. So, the large family home was sold, and the smaller house in the village of Kinderhook, just 30-minutes south of Albany on the East side of the Hudson River, had already become the family’s new gathering place.

The American end-of-summer holiday, Labor Day, had seen a great gathering in our new-old house, which was in need of lots of work and lots of workers, down to the youngest grandchild. Our brilliantly happy memories of that time together are now forever intertwined with the brilliant beauty of the world on the day that would bring devastating sorrow and pain to so many.

At about 8:30 I left my house to walk to the center of the village and attend my first Yoga lesson in a spacious, high-ceilinged room above the village hall. At the close of class, the teacher invited us to meditate silently on a word of our own choosing. Light pouring through the tall arched windows, reflecting on creamy walls, on the pressed-tin ceiling and honey-hued wooden floors, made my choice easy, and I was filled with gratitude for the light that fills our world, our minds, our hearts.

On the way home I stopped for my mail at the post office, always a quiet place at that time of day. In my box, along with regular letters and bills, was a notice of a package. The postmistress and I were alone as I smilingly told her I hoped there was a good surprise in the package she had for me.

“Yes,” she said, “I hope so, too, especially on a day like this.”

“What do you mean?” I asked, sensing something seriously wrong.

“Oh, you don’t know…a plane has gone into the World Trade Center.”

I barely managed to say, “I have a son who works there,” and the look that came over her face that told me she was already filled with sorrow for me.

It was nearing 10 am now, and my deliberate walk home, one foot in front of the other, was a time of girding for all that was to follow. I put myself in the hands of God, I put us all in hands of God, and prayed for strength to face whatever was ahead.

There were eight messages on my telephone answering machine.

The first was from my son Stephen, the sixth of the eight children, the fourth of the five sons, saying good-bye, his voice telling me that whatever was to happen, he would be all right, and so would I; his voice, saying “I love you” -- a plural ‘you’ if ever there was one, because not for a moment did I not know this was a message for all he was leaving.

Stephen worked in the South Tower of the World Trade Center, the second to be hit, the first to fall. Directly across the street, his sister Amy, our last child and third daughter, worked in the World Financial Center.

The second message on my machine was from Amy’s fiancé Dan, whose shaken voice betrayed his deepest fears. “Anne, have you heard from Amy? I don’t know where she is” his voice told me.

The third call was from my husband, his shattered voice asking me, pleading with me to call him. All the other calls were from family and friends begging for word that the children were all safe.

I reached my husband immediately and he said he was coming to be with me. He asked me to not turn on the television.

I had no inclination to do so. I stepped out my kitchen door into the back yard, and sitting with the phone on my lap, descended into deep prayer, asking to be connected to all that was happening and to all who were in jeopardy, and preparing myself for the horror of having to accept that two of my children were dead and I was alive.

The phone rang.

It was my daughter, Amy, alive.

Joy rose within me from depths never guessed at. Again and again, waves of joy filled me, rolled through me, before I had the strength and breath to speak the only words possible “Where is Stephen?”

The sister who had seen, had heard, had known her brother’s destruction as she was carried away from it in a river of people escaping the ruined buildings, could not answer.

Into that void of silence came rushing waves of grief and despair that shook the foundation of my being. With every wave, a howling came from me unlike any sound I had ever experienced or known, an ancient cry to the heavens unmistakable in its meaning. That dear daughter and sister heard a sound no human ear would ever seek to hear or ever forget hearing.

And I knew my life would be spent honoring the grief and honoring the joy of those few moments. My loss was forever linked to all the loss of all the ages, ages past and the ages to come. Just so, my joy must be linked forever to all the joy of all the ages past and to come.

How to resist falling in love with death was the question. Depression and despair is one way of falling in love with death. Violence and aggression is another way of falling in love with death. I prayed each day would bring me what I needed to resist those tempting easy answers. And so it happened. My belief that love is the only eternal element of our human existence grew ever deeper.

In the immediate aftermath of September 11th my attention was focused on my family as we charted our own collective and individual journeys through grief. As the veils of mourning began to lift, I began speaking privately and publicly of my own certainty that a violent response was not the answer. I had long ago come to the certainty that in relationships between and among individuals and nations, violent retaliation only sowed dragon’s teeth from which sprang more horror, more destruction.

In the mid-sixties, when I had come to oppose the United States’ involvement in Vietnam, I had become active in local efforts to increase public awareness of the consequences of this war, of the damage being done the Vietnamese people, of the damage being done to our young people forced to bear arms in a war that recognized no civilians. As a member of Pax Christi, the Catholic international peace organization founded by German and Belgian priests after World War I, I attended vigils, I pamphleted at defense factories, I rode on long bus rides to lobby elected officials in Washington. And so, now, I reentered that way of witnessing, standing in public places in candlelit vigils for peace with local groups, traveling to participate in nearby fasting and prayer observances.

It wasn’t until March of 2002 that I learned of the group known as September 11th Families for Peaceful Tomorrows. My introduction was a news release sent me by email. The headline was
SEPTEMBER 11th FAMILIES FOR PEACEFUL TOMORROWS’ STATEMENT ON THE IRAQ WAR
and the sub-heading was a quote by the Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr.:

The past is prophetic in that it asserts that wars are poor chisels for carving out peaceful tomorrows. One day we must come to see that peace is not merely a distant goal that we seek, but a means by which we arrive at that goal. We must pursue peaceful ends through peaceful means. How much longer must we play at deadly war games before we heed the plaintive pleas of the unnumbered dead and maimed of past wars?

I would like to read the news release to you so you can hear the words that were a clarion call for me, words that spoke so directly to my own inner convictions, and I expect to yours as well:

September 11th Families for Peaceful Tomorrows condemns unconditionally the illegal, immoral, and unjustified US-led military action in Iraq. As family members of September 11th victims, we know how it feels to experience "shock and awe," and we do not want other innocent families to suffer the trauma and grief that we have endured. While we also condemn the brutality of Saddam Hussein's regime, it does not justify the brutality, death and destruction being visited upon Iraq and its citizens by our own government.

What others may view as a policy decision, we see clearly as the murder of innocent people. Death among the civilian population in Iraq will be immediate: the result of bombing that kills indiscriminately. Especially at risk are the children who make up 50% of Iraq's population. Death will also come later, from malnutrition and disease caused by the interruption of vital relief services and the destruction of infrastructure for supplying food and medicine. More deaths will occur years from now, as a result of the horrendous environmental impacts of waging war using lethal contaminants such as depleted uranium, a substance banned by the European Union.
We are also concerned about this war’s consequences for America's military personnel, brave women and men who enlisted to defend our country, only to find themselves sent to fight an unjust war of aggression. Our prayers are with them and their families, and our hopes are that they will return soon.

Meanwhile, American citizens will bear the staggering costs of military action and the resulting reduction in spending on domestic infrastructure and social programs. We assert that Congress's lack of accountability for this war is a serious threat to our Democracy. We call on the House and the Senate to fulfill their Constitutional roles, both as representatives of the public will and as a check against the abuse of power by the Executive branch. And we call on them to defend America from all of the threats—economic, political, and military—that gather against it.

This war will not make America safer. On the contrary, it has already resulted in heightened anti-American sentiment around the world, and is likely to promote further terrorist attacks, not just today, but years from today. It will not protect American families from another September 11th
Therefore, members of September 11th Families for Peaceful Tomorrows will continue to oppose this war and to draw attention to its civilian victims. We will demand compensation for them, as we did for innocent civilians killed and injured by our bombs in Afghanistan. These casualties must be included as we tally the costs of choosing to wage war.

Finally, we will keep the faith with millions of people across the United States and around the world who have formed a truly international community favoring peace and declaring this war immoral. We are confident that, in spite of the events of today, the wisdom of their views will prevail as the 21st century unfolds, and as we continue to build a global community that honors humanity, keeps families whole, and renders war obsolete.

It is good to know who your enemies are. But it is more important to know who your friends are. While we know that the terrorist threat is real, I believe that we can pursue better, smarter remedies, using the power of alliances and the rule of international law.

What kind of peace do we seek? Not a Pax Americana enforced on the world by American weapons of war. Not the peace of the grave or the security of the slave. I am talking about genuine peace, the kind of peace that makes life on earth worth living, the kind that enables men and nations to grow and to hope and to build a better life for their children – not merely peace for Americans but peace for all men and women – not merely peace in our time but peace for all time.