Remembering 9/11: A Day of Horror and Tragedy

Sept. 11, 2001 will always be one of those, “Where were you when…?” days, similar to the assassinations of President John F. Kennedy and Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.; the space shuttle Challenger exploding and killing seven crew members, and other tragic events of like magnitude.

 

What were you doing on this day 22 years ago? Do you remember? For most of us, what we now refer to as “9/11” started off just like any other day. We were working, leaving for work, going to school, finishing breakfast, or engaged in any number of everyday life activities. Who knew that before 10 that morning, the world as we knew it would be turned upside-down?

No one could have imagined the horrific scenario: Commercial jets being hijacked and slamming directly into the North and South towers of the World Trade Center in New York City, another into the Pentagon in Washington, D.C., and a fourth diverted from its intended target by courageous passengers, crashing instead in rural Pennsylvania. 

This memorial fountain at the World Trade
Center includes names of people whose
lives were lost on Sept. 11, 2001.

Nearly 3,000 lives were lost that day, including more than 2,000 in the iconic towers that incredibly were reduced to rubble, as well as hundreds of first responders, and the 19 terrorists coordinating the attacks. 

We now have a whole generation of young people who basically know nothing about that evil day because they were too young or not born yet. But for those of us who helplessly watched live news reports as the tragic events unfolded, that day will remain etched in our memories forever. 

 

I think of my friend Jerry, an entrepreneur who had worked in the North Tower for years. He would have been on one of the building’s top floors that morning if he had not overslept. Instead, he was sitting in his kitchen reading the paper and drinking a cup of coffee when one of his daughters frantically called to see where he was and if he was safe. Even to this day, the memory of friends he lost that day saddens him.

 

For a brief time following the attacks, our nation seemed to experience a spiritual revival of sorts. Many thousands thronged to churches, some of whom rarely if ever had attended before. Countless prayers were offered as realities of the heinous acts raised questions that seemed unanswerable. At moments like that – faced with life’s fragility and the heightened sense of evil’s presence – it’s common to become desperate for hope.

 

As often happens, however, within weeks our lives had returned to “business as usual,” despite newly enforced security checks that would dramatically alter travel experiences and other measures enacted to prevent future acts of terrorism. 

 

Without becoming morbid, we should use this day to pause, remember, and reflect on things that matter most. Not the football games played last weekend, the weather, what’s on our calendars, or even the perpetual political wrangling that seems beyond resolution. 

 

Things that seem so important today will one day cease to be. We’re assured of this in James 4:13-15, which says, “Now listen, you who say, ‘Today or tomorrow we will go to this or that city, spend a year there, carry on business and make money.’ Why, you do not even know what will happen tomorrow. What is your life? You are a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes. Instead, you should say, ‘If it is the Lord’s will, we will live and do this or that.’”

 

It’s good to recognize how fleeting earthly life is – and how uncertain. We’d also be wise if we took to heart Jesus’ challenge from His sermon on the mount: “Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy, and where thieves break in and steal. But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where moth and rust do not destroy, and where thieves do not break in and steal” (Matthew 6:19-20).

 

As the old saying reminds us, “You can’t take it with you.” But we can send it ahead – things that will endure for eternity – as Jesus’ admonition suggests. 

 

On Sept. 11, 2001, thousands of men, women and children had plans for later in the day, the next week or the next month. In a flash, their plans were changed for eternity. This sounds hauntingly like 1 Corinthians 15:52 which says, “in a flash, in the twinkling of an eye…the trumpet will sound, the dead will be raised imperishable, and we will be changed.” 

No one knows exactly when that will be. But that day will come, as certainly as the sun rising in the east and the sky being blue. Will we be ready?

Do We Dare Release the Fading Memory of 9/11?

A new tower stands at the World Trade Center, along with
historic Trinity Church that was spared of destruction on 9/11.

Sept. 11, 2001 started off as what seemed to be just an ordinary day. Millions of people going to work, to school, the grocery store, the gym, the doctor, the auto repair shop. By midmorning, however, it seemed as if the world had been turned upside-down – at least in the United States.

Four commercial airline jets had been hijacked and commandeered, three crashing into the north and south towers of the World Trade Center in New York City and the west side of the Pentagon in Washington, D.C., and because of heroic efforts of passengers, a fourth crashed near Shanksville, Pa. before it could reach another destination for destruction and mayhem.

 

In all, 2,996 people died as a direct result of the hijacked plane crashes, not only passengers and occupants of the buildings but also firefighters, paramedics and police officers.

 

Sadly, in the more than two decades since, the sense of horror and disbelief has become a fading memory for many people. There are memorials at the site of what’s become known as “Ground Zero,” but aside from the unending annoyance of passenger screening at airports that didn’t exist prior to ”9/11,” there’s little to remind us of what transpired that day.

 

An entire generation of young people who weren’t even born at the time know little or nothing about the terrorist acts. In fact, a U.S. congresswoman once referenced the Sept. 11, 2001 events as “somebody did something.”

 

The evening of 9/11, and for days and weeks afterward, churches across America were jammed with mourners, frightened Americans and persons seeking answers for the orchestrated acts of hatred. However, within a month or two, the temporary spiritual fervor had waned as people calmed down and returned to “life as usual.” Today, instead of flocking to the nation’s churches, it seems throngs of people are leaving them, apparently convinced they don’t need God.

 

Should we release the diminishing remembrances of 9/11, dismissing them as “that was then, this is now”? Simply as “somebody did something” and leave it at that?

 

The answer should be a decided and unequivocal “No!” Just as we dare not abandon the painful yet important histories of slavery, the Holocaust, and other terrible times in the annals of humankind. Not to stir up renewed anger and festering bitterness, but to remember the individuals who died, the families devastated that day – and the terrifying example of the evil possible when God is removed from the equation.

 

As we read the Bible, especially the story of the Israelites in the Old Testament, we learn the consequences of short memories. The Israelites saw God perform great miracles in freeing them from four centuries of bondage in Egypt – creating plagues that eventually convinced Pharaoh to let them go; parting the Red Sea as Egyptian chariots and horses pursued them; providing water, manna and quail to sustain countless thousands of men, women and children. Yet, during times of prosperity, they quickly forgot what He had done.

 

We see the Israelites faithfully serving and worshiping God when led by humble prophets and godly kings, but once those leaders died, the people quickly turned to idolatry and pagan practices. Memories were extremely short, especially during good times when they forgot they needed God. As the book of Judges concludes, “In those days there was no king in Israel; everyone did what was right in their own eyes” (Judges 21:25).

 

Things haven’t changed much in the many centuries since. In the days after 9/11, some expressed the opinion that one reason the Lord allowed such unbelievable acts of evil was to get our attention, to remind us of our need for Him. Perhaps for a moment or two He did have our attention, but it appears we have turned our focus to other things. For many people, God is a mere afterthought, if that.

 

Not long ago I read a compelling quote from the late Aleksandr Solshenitsyn, a famous Soviet author and outspoken critic of communism until his death in 2008. He was arrested for his dissent and suffered for eight years in the notorious Russian gulag system. He wrote novels about Soviet oppression – one, The Gulag Archipelago, won him the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1970. Here’s what he said:

 

“Over a half century ago, while I was still a child, I recall hearing a number of old people offer the following explanation for the great disasters that had befallen Russia: 'Men have forgotten God; that's why all this has happened.' Since then I have spent well-nigh 50 years working on the history of our revolution; in the process I have read hundreds of books, collected hundreds of personal testimonies, and have already contributed eight volumes of my own toward the effort of clearing away the rubble left by that upheaval. But if I were asked today to formulate as concisely as possible the main cause of the ruinous revolution that swallowed up some 60 million of our people, I could not put it more accurately than to repeat: 'Men have forgotten God; that's why all this has happened.'”

 

We live in perilous times today. As dark memories of 9/11 fade, as more and more people live ignorant of such acts motivated by fathomless evil, we’re also losing the conviction of our individual and collective need for God. All around us, we are reaping what we’ve sown.

 

Proverbs 29:18 carries a cautionary message: “When there is no vision, the people perish….” Another translation states it this way: “Where there is no [prophetic] revelation, people cast off restraint; but blessed is the one who heeds wisdom’s instruction.”

Did the Lord allow the tragic events of 9/11 to serve as a wakeup call to a nation – and a world – turning their back on Him? That’s up for debate. But we can’t ignore the reality that absent of an understanding of God’s design for us and standards for living, people indeed are casting off restraint and ultimately perishing, empty and hopeless. That’s what happens when, as Solzhenitsyn wrote, “Men have forgotten God.” 

Another Day That Continues to Live in Infamy

Sept. 11, 2001 – a day that all of us who are old enough to remember will never forget. It’s one of those “where were you when?…” events that mark and mar human and social history.

Nearly 3,000 lives were lost. More than 6,000 others were injured that day, and over the years since, many other lives have been lost, mostly first responders who courageously rushed into the devastation despite great danger.

 

Four jet airliners commandeered that morning by terrorists, two of them flown into the iconic Twin Towers of the World Trade Center in lower Manhattan, New York, one into the Pentagon, and a fourth forced into the ground in rural Pennsylvania before it could reach another terror target.

 

Not long ago, a congresswoman described the murderous acts of 9/11 as “somebody did something.” But for many of us, that “something” was akin to the Dec. 7, 1971 attack by Japanese naval and air forces on Pearl Harbor in Hawaii, killing more than 2,400 military and civilian personnel and injuring more than 1,000. The following day President Franklin D. Roosevelt labeled it, “a date which will live in infamy.”

 

As the mournful anniversary of what is commonly known as “9/11” reaches its 20^th year, it’s a time for reflection. Like many people, I was at work. One of our staff came to tell me one of the towers had been struck. Several of us gathered in front of a conference room TV to watch the news coverage. 

 

Some felt led to pray for the victims; while we were praying, we heard the report that the second tower had been hit by another airliner. This confirmed to all that this was an intentional, planned event. Our eyes remained riveted on the TV screen as first one smoke-spewing tower, then the other, collapsed in an enormous heap.

 

After the reality of what has just happened started to settle in, I thought of my friend Jerry, who lived in Bayonne, N.J., across the river from Manhattan, and worked in the North Tower. A few years earlier, I had enjoyed lunch with him and another friend in the famed Windows of the World restaurant, located on the tower’s 107^th floor. Could he have been in the tower?

 

Providentially, Jerry was not. After staying up to watch a Monday Night Football game, he had failed to properly set the high-tech clock radio he had received the previous Christmas, and the alarm never went off. Being sole proprietor of his Manhattan business, Jerry had decided not to make his usual commute into the city. Instead, he was sitting at his kitchen table, drinking coffee and reading the morning newspaper when one of his daughters called, frantically hoping he was safe.

 

Jerry immediately turned on his TV and saw the destruction of the iconic towers unfold. Unlike most viewers, he personally knew dozens of people trapped in the North Tower, the final minutes of their lives caught up in the chaos. Had he awakened on time and ridden the subway to the station under 1 World Trade Center, Jerry likely would have been on the 77^th floor visiting with friends when the building was rammed. To this day, my friend grieves their loss – and still marvels at how God spared his own life because an alarm clock didn’t wake him up.

 

Twenty years later, grim memories remain. From a spiritual perspective, what can we glean from this heinous terrorist plot? Of many possible lessons we could draw from, I’ll suggest only a few:

 

First, the senseless acts of 9/11 gave us indelible evidence of the prevalence of evil in our world. In one of the Bible’s most powerful prophetic books we read, “The heart is deceitful above all things and beyond cure. Who can understand it?” (Jeremiah 17:9). Many years later Jesus said, “A good man brings good things out of the good stored up in him, and an evil man brings evil things out of the evil stored up in him” (Matthew 12:35). If there was any doubt about this, watching commercial passenger jets crash into the glistening towers dispelled it.

 

Second, virtually all of us go through life planning for tomorrow, next week, next year. The tragedies of 9/11 were a grim reminder that we’re not guaranteed five minutes from now, let alone tomorrow or some later time. Using a parable about a rich fool, Jesus taught about life’s brevity and the importance of establishing and keeping proper priorities. In the story, a rich man had accumulated so many goods and such an abundant crop that he resolved to tear down his existing barns and build larger ones. “…But God said to him, ‘You fool! This very night your life will be demanded from you. Then who will get what you have prepared for yourself?’ This is how it will be with anyone who stores up things for himself but is not rich toward God” (Luke 12:13-21).

 

Sadly, the past year and a half of the COVID-19 pandemic also has pressed this point home, with people we know falling victim to the virus. Young or old, we need to be prepared for the day we will stand before the Lord. “But the day of the Lord will come as a thief in the night, in which the heavens will pass away with a great noise, and the elements will melt with fervent heat; both the earth and the works that are in it will be burned up” (2 Peter 3:10). While this refers specifically to what is commonly known as “the end times,” it can also apply to our final moments on earth.

 

One last point: During His earthly ministry, Jesus made a habit of presenting unconventional teachings. One was His response to the commonly accepted view of retribution, “An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth.” During Jesus’ “sermon on the mount,” He gave an opposing perspective: 

“You have heard that it was said, ‘Love your neighbor’ and ‘Hate your enemy.’ But I tell you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, that you may be sons of your Father in heaven. He causes His sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous. If you love those who love you, what reward will you get? Do not even tax collectors do the same? And if you greet only your brothers, what are you doing more than others? Do not even Gentiles do the same?” (Matthew 5:43-47).

 

This is one of the most difficult of Jesus’ messages to grasp and apply. We don’t want to love our enemies. We want vengeance, to make those who hurt us pay a severe price. We certainly don’t want to forgive. This, however, is one of the precepts that separates the teaching of Jesus Christ and Christianity from any other religion or belief system. How can we love our enemies, those who persecute and seek to harm us, even kill us? This is only possible through the presence and power of God’s Spirit living in us.

 

Let’s hope and pray we don’t need another 9/11-type of calamity to remind us of these truths. 

The Day Everything Changed

The day many of us will never forget.

With this post appearing on September 11, it seems right to use it to reflect on that day 13 years ago when it seemed everything changed.

For most of us the morning began quietly enough, but before long we began having one of those “you’re not in Kansas anymore, Dorothy” moments. We started hearing about a commercial jet slamming into one of the World Trade Center towers. “How does that happen?” we all wondered. When the second jet rammed the other tower, we knew.

As the day unfolded we learned more and more about the causes and effects of those horrendous, unimaginable acts of terrorism, not only in Manhattan but also at the Pentagon in Washington, D.C. and in a lonely Pennsylvania field. It became one of those “where were you when…” events, like the assassination of JFK, the passing of Elvis, and the Challenger explosion. It’s interesting how tragic, unexpected deaths create for us mental and emotional markers.

That, of course, was in 2001. We’re now in 2014, and the world we knew then has changed dramatically, irrevocably. From long security lines at airports to the unending wars in the Middle East, from memorials that remain for the thousands who died on that day to the unfortunate profiling of Muslims because of a small minority of deranged terrorists, life is very different today.

It would be nice to conclude we’ve learned some things from that day. Well, we have, but many of those things haven’t been good. Terrorism remains an ever-present threat. Hatred across ethnic, ideological and racial lines persists, perhaps stronger than ever. So far the answer to the question, “Can’t we all just get along?” seems a resounding, “No!”

Some people far more optimistic and idealistic than me continue to espouse the belief humanity is “evolving,” and eventually we’ll become more loving, more accepting, kinder, and more (and I hate this word) “tolerant.” But where’s the proof? Show me the evidence.

More than ever, our nation – and the world – seem encamped at starkly divergent, irreconcilable ideological poles. At this rate, the word “compromise” will probably soon be eradicated from dictionaries due to lack of use. The polarizing influence of news reporting and the dart-throwing of opinions on social media only feed this growing malaise.

Violence in many forms hasn’t abated. If anything it’s escalated, and contrary to what some believe, I don’t think the solution is simply more stringent gun laws. When people are hell-bent on mayhem, if they want guns they’ll find them. And if they can’t get guns, killers will use knives, explosives, hammers, sewing needles, or their bare hands if they need to do so. Didn’t the terrorists at the Boston Marathon use pressure cookers?

Years ago we often heard the declaration, “There are no absolutes!” Many seem to have bought into this philosophy, and now we’re reaping what we’ve sown. In the Old Testament, Judges 21:25 states, “In those days Israel had no king; everyone did as they saw fit.” Regardless of your view of President Obama, it seems everyone these days is intent on doing as they see fit – what is right in their own eyes.

So where are we, 13 years after the grim, unspeakable events of 9-11? What have we learned – for the better? If we’re determined to insist on “my truth,” as if we find Truth served on a buffet table so we can select whatever appeals to us at the moment, it seems foolish for us to expect any positive change. As someone has said, “If you stand for nothing, you’ll fall for anything.”

Does that suggest we should despair? Not at all. Despite the events of 9-11, and everything since then, we have the assurance God hasn’t changed one iota. As the Scriptures assure us, “Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever" (Hebrews 13:8).

I’m confident God is busily at work, even though He might not be doing things in the way we think they should be done. But that’s why He is God – and we’re not. He doesn’t need our advice. The depth of His love, grace and mercy defy our comprehension.

So as I observe the continuing, escalating turmoil around us, there’s not much in what we see to inspire hope. But then I’m reminded, “we walk by faith, not by sight” (2 Corinthians 5:7).

It also helps to reflect on days when thoughts of God were alien to our minds, and then “remember at that time you were separate from Christ, excluded from citizenship in Israel and foreigners to the covenants of the promise, without hope and without God in the world. But now in Christ Jesus you who formerly were far off have been brought near” (Ephesians 2:12).

So again on September 11 we pause and think about the past. But those that are followers of Jesus Christ can also look ahead, filled with hope and anticipation for the future. Our U.S. currency, to the chagrin of some, still proclaims, “In God We Trust.” Today’s a good day for doing just that.

‘Where Were You . . . ?’

Where were you when the horrifying events of Sept. 11, 2001 unfolded? This question ranks in importance along with similar questions of another generation:

·       Where were you when President Kennedy was shot?

·       Where were you when you heard that Elvis had died?

·       Where were you when the space shuttle Challenger exploded?

Each of those tragedies has helped to define and shape us as a society, in one respect rocking the foundations of our seemingly placid existence, in another forcing us to re-examine our core convictions, values and beliefs.

When the incredible scenes of 9-11 took place, I was at work, sitting at my desktop computer. I don’t recall what it was I was writing. Within the context of the day’s, whatever it was – no matter how vital – seemed inconsequential.

Who can ever forget the images of the North Tower, officially known as One World Trade Center, smoke billowing out, and then minutes later seeing the second jet slam into the South Tower, casting aside any speculation that the first was just a horrendous accident?

A friend of mine, Jerry, worked on Wall Street and would have been in the North Tower that morning except for oversleeping after staying up late to watch his favorite team play on “Monday Night Football.” It had been his custom to get off the subway, take an elevator to visit friends on the 79^th floor where he used to have an office, then leave for his business that had moved down the street.

Ironically, another tragedy probably spared Jerry’s life on 9-11. His wife, Camy, had died a couple of months earlier of an abdominal aortic aneurysm. Only weeks before she had presented Jerry with the high-tech clock radio he failed to set properly to awaken him that fateful September morning. So when the jets slammed into the towers, Jerry was at home in Bayonne, New Jersey, drinking a cup of coffee and reading the morning newspaper before heading to work a little late.

Needless to say, he didn’t go to work that day.

Mountains of words have been written about 9-11, its aftermath, the war on terror that has been waged ever since, and the impact still reverberating for individuals and families directly and indirectly affected. Just as occurred following the assassinations of JFK, Martin Luther King, Jr., Bobby Kennedy and other heinous events, 9-11 stripped away another layer of our society’s collective “innocence” (and perhaps, ignorance), along with any semblance of a Pollyanna spirit and trust in human purity we ever had.

But if there is a positive to be found, anything beneficial, it’s the necessary reminder that one day we all will die. It might not be in calamity that generates headlines and news reports around the world. But our time here on earth, one way or another, is limited. So we should cherish every moment.

As Ephesians 5:16 tells us, “make the most of every opportunity, because the days are evil.” The moments of our lives appear and flee just as quickly, never to be enjoyed again.

Amid the sadness of 9-11, let’s rejoice in today. We won’t see it again. “This is the day the Lord has made; let us rejoice and be glad in it” (Psalm 118:24).