Russia’s gift to the American people.

Tear Of Joy
By Jimmy Reed


Years before the 9/11 tragedy, James P. DeWolfe, an Episcopalian bishop, said, “Some morning it is likely that the headlines of the world will scream forth the news that New York has been bombed. As tragic as this will be, it will nevertheless accomplish the deep unity that Christians should have.”

And then it happened … September 11, 2001 … the twin towers of the World Trade Center crumbled earthward after being struck by commercial airliners, burning, asphyxiating, and crushing thousands of innocent people, leaving countless family members and friends scarred for the rest of their lives, and causing unparalleled grief around the world — especially here in the most blessed nation on earth.

A Russian artist noticed this grief caused by man’s inhumanity to man, and decided to build a monument that would stand as a symbol of worldwide repugnance to terrorism, and would cement the unity of mankind in response to this senseless, evil destruction of human life. His name is Zurab Tsereteli, a Russian painter, sculptor and architect. He understood that despite time’s healing nature, certain catastrophic events, especially those perpetrated by uncivilized barbarians against civilized societies, must never be forgotten.

Five years after 9/11, at Bayonne Harbor, New Jersey, Tsereteli’s breathtakingly beautiful creation, the Tear Of Grief — Russia’s gift to the American people — was unveiled.

The one-hundred-foot-tall, 175-ton monument contains a giant, nickel-plated, forty-foot teardrop, suspended between a jagged tear ripped into the walls on either side of it. At its base the names of those killed on that darkest of days in American history are inscribed.

How did such creative inspiration come to Tsereteli? Shortly after the events of 9/11 impacted the world, he was walking the streets of Moscow and was struck by the collective outpouring of grief among his own people, who in the past had been at odds with the people of America. He noticed tears streaming down the faces of many passersby.

Perhaps this great artist understood that the two most instantly recognizable means of human communication — opposites of each other — are the tear and the smile. Perhaps at that moment he smiled, having realized that the most appropriate symbol for the enduring grief caused by 9/11, a grief that will never pass away, should be a tear … a tear of grief.

With God’s grace, maybe this tear of grief will someday become a tear of joy, which will happen with the fulfillment of the hope for a world in which terrorism will disappear, along with the murderous cowards who now commit it against those whose system of beliefs, spiritual and otherwise, does not coincide with their own.

That hope will become reality when the human race obeys God’s word as given in II Chronicles, Chapter 7, verse 14: If My people … humble themselves, and pray … and turn from their wicked ways … I will hear from Heaven, and will forgive their sin, and will heal their land.

Then, the Tear Of Grief will become the Tear Of Joy.