In memory of September 11, 2001.
I remember where I was that morning. I was 9 years old and I was eating my breakfast and getting ready for school. I had this ritual, or this tradition of eating my cereal and watching cartoons weekday mornings before school. It was a Tuesday morning and I had come down for breakfast and, in my 9 year old mind, was upset that the news was on instead of my cartoons. I was used to bad things happening to people and was used to hearing about it only to forget about it moments later because it didn't affect me. It wasn't until the days and weeks after 9/11 that my young mind began to realize that this was something bigger, scarier, and much more tragic than anything I had seen on the news before.
As the years have passed, I understand much more and my heart aches much worse over the loss of life because of the daring attack on American soil. That Tuesday morning is no longer that one day where I didn't get to watch cartoons.
12 years have passed and my heart still hurts whenever this day comes around. And in my heart, I mourn along with my country. I will never forget that day. I will never forget seeing those planes crash into the Twin Towers and watching all that smoke on the TV. I will never forget. But what should I do with those thoughts burning in my mind?
It is proper and honorable to always remember that day. Not just the tragedy of lives lost in the attack itself, but also the lives lost of the brave men and women who ran towards danger and sacrificed themselves on the behalf of others. Their sacrifice is worth honoring. And our loss is worth mourning and remembering.
What I fear, though, and what I battle within myself, is letting my unwillingness to forget fester into hatred. I do not say this because I do not think the terrorists responsible should have been hunted down and punished; I do. Our nation was attacked aggressively and we had an obligation to respond with strength and determination. The military action that followed 9/11 was justified and right. We did not forget. And we did not relent until those responsible had paid the price. That is not what I mean when I talk about hatred.
In my personal life, I have seen the line between pursuing justice and being unjustly angry and bitter become blurred. I cannot speak to all Americans in this, but I can speak to all Christians in saying this: we may have a right to be angry. But we do not have a right to stay angry.
"Never forget" should not mean "stay angry". That is not the way to move forward. And I do not presume to say that all of America is still bitter and enraged over 9/11, but I know there are some that are. We ought to honor our dead, and remember how that tragedy caused our nation to become united in spirit, if even for a short time. But I believe that the time for anger has passed. I believe we would do well to allow for healing in that.
I speak of 9/11, yes, but these words come from somewhere deep and personal inside me also. While America pauses to remember a tragedy from 12 years ago, I find myself in the midst of a personal tragedy right now. And I would be lying if I said that this message wasn't more than just a memorial to what happened over a decade ago.
Sometimes in life things get broken. Relationships, dreams, plans...they do not always last. And sometimes the ending of those things can be tragic. But like 9/11, there are healthy ways to move forward and there are many wrong ways to do so.
As I grow older, I realize that not everything can be fixed. Not every wrong, every hurt can be undone and the pain within us banished. That is the nature of tragedy. But it is also the nature of love to not abandon our loss in the midst of our hurt, but to honor it and allow for healing, even if that healing means things won't be the same as they were before.
September 11th, 2001 changed America forever. But we can still heal and honor our loss in the midst of that tragedy, even as we can in our personal tragedies. We do not have to forget. And we are allowed to be angry and hurt. But we ought not stay in that dark place and we ought not abandon our obligation to honor what was lost, even in the mist of our pain. We must allow for healing, even knowing it doesn't make everything fixed and okay. We must move past the tragedy and continue forward.
I have my own memories of where I was on that day and the moment I came to realize what was happening by seeing events flashing before me on the television, but what I remember most about that day was the sense of feeling all the grief in the air, like an electrical charge moving through me. On that day, I felt the pain of a thousands of souls crying out. I've never before sensed anything like that, but have sensed it since, on every 9/11 anniversary.
ReplyDeleteOn that day, the atmosphere was literally holding the light of souls as they rose to Jesus, it held the power of prayer, and it held the sadness and despair, the fear and confusion. All of that was hanging in the atmosphere on that day, and I felt it. The sky didn't look the same to me, the air didn't smell the same, the earth wasn't the earth that day, but a place of pain and anguish.
This September 10th, I found myself weeping all day long. Before I knew what the date was I noticed that I was unusually weepy and was crying at everything I saw that had a hint of sadness in it. Then I looked at the calendar, as a habit for the day, and realized the following day would be 9/11 and that's when I knew I was feeling sorrow, not mine, the sorrow of those who were already living their pain for the day to come. It's this realization that my heart can sense the pain in my fellow man which gave rise to the word, "human strand." I made that word up to communicate the feeling I have when my heart aches along with another, when I feel connected to my fellow man, when I feel their pain and feel their light.
God's peace be with us all!