I was sitting at my desk, just beginning my workday, when one of my coworkers walked through the door and said in a calm, perplexed tone, "Some plane just ran into a building in New York". I got on the internet and tried to find what information I could. Shortly thereafter I picked up the phone and called hubby at work to tell him the news. Details were sketchy. No one really understood what had happened. All of us thought it was a horrible accident. Nothing you would stop your work to monitor. We turned on the radio just so we could get a little more information. And then it happened again. And again. And again. One of the attorneys had a tiny black and white 6 inch television set. We hooked it up and huddled around the tiny images of the giant event. No words were spoken for many minutes. We watched in disbelief. Surely it was an accident. We listened to the news reports - people were jumping from the buildings, some were calling 911 from the top floors because they couldn’t get out, firefighters were marching to the scene. All work for the day stopped. We watched while the first tower fell. We watched while the second tower fell. We watched the fires burn in Washington D.C. We watched as they struggled to locate the fourth plane. We watched from afar. All day and all night we watched the news. So few words were spoken as we absorbed information and listened to stories - some horrific, some heroic.
I live in a very small town in the middle of Iowa. The highest building in town (other than the required grain elevator) is 3 stories high. There are no top government officials or federal agencies anywhere near me. But even I had the urge to run and hide. Really, who was safe?
I didn’t know anyone who was killed on September 11, 2001. I really didn’t even know anyone that lived or worked around the attacked areas. I wasn’t afraid that someone I knew and loved was missing. But I felt this need to talk to my family and to spend time with people I loved. To tell them what they mean to me.
I watched documentaries last night and it struck me how much I had forgotten in these five years. Seeing the images again brought back the same frustration, bewilderment and tension that I had felt back then, but not to the same degree. Five years from now, will it be even less? How long will it be before 9/11 is just another page in our history books - like Pearl Harbor, the Holocaust, the assassination of President Kennedy. Life has changed, but we have adapted. We have changed as people, but we have gotten used to it. We live our lives each day, but we no longer feel invincible.
My pastor told a story last night about a minister in the USSR. He went missing and several days later his body was discovered - horribly tortured because of his faith. Fifty thousand of his followers gathered that night and listened to a tape of his last sermon. Good must overcome evil. Days later his funeral was attended by many thousands of people. And as they marched by the headquarters of his killers, the secret police, they chanted with tears streaming down their faces "We forgive. We forgive."
I don’t want to forgive the men that hijacked those planes 5 years ago. I don’t want to forgive the horrible group that coordinated these attacks. And I certainly don’t want to forget. But neither do I want to live every day of my life with the fear I felt that day. And its easy for me to say the words "I forgive. I forgive." But would my heart really mean it? Is that what God has called us to do? How do we turn our hate into love? How do we remember without being haunted?
So many questions came from that day. So few answers have followed. But this remains - God is in control. And good must overcome evil.
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