today marks the 6th year anniversary of the september 11th attacks. people continue to mention the date as a single moment that changed out world. i am not so reflective to understand all that has changed, but with our world going to war afterwards that one aspect of change is pretty evident to me. after that day we saw the beginning of a state of fear that has not be around since the end of the cold war i guess is a shift change. but what happened in my life? let me try and remember
in 2001 i was the youth pastor at hillcrest umc. being a youth pastor gives me some freedom in starting my day, which i kinda like. i had this trend of waking up and watching the news for the day while i made some coffee. this day was like none other. i woke, turned on the television, but i don't ever remember getting to the coffee. at that point there was some video footage of one of the world trade towers on fire. it had not been called a terrorist attack at that point. it was being reported as just a fire in the building. then there was the 2nd plane. this one came out of no-where, but you saw it and knew something was not right.
reporters, by that point, where on the empire state building reporting the happenings. i do not remember who i watched more of. i probably switched channels a time or two. i remember calling my mom. she was not in any danger, but us growing up in nj i thought she'd want to know. she hadn't been watching, it wasn't tv time in the day care that she provided. we talked for a bit then hung up so she could call some friends she was concerned about.
side story: my mom runs a kennel (a little more full-time now than she used too). turns out that she sold a dog to a lady. in the contract my mom says that within 72 hours the dog needs to get a physical from their vet. this lady happened to take her dog to the vet on sept 11th. wanna guess where she worked? the dog is now called "lucky."
i watched the happenings in nyc like so many others. what became very evident as the buildings burned was that they would fall. my experience as firefighter so many years ago gave me some ideas as to all that was happening on the ground and in the buildings. it was just a matter of time. i also knew of what the firefighters were doing, packed with all their gear running up flight after flight of stairs. they had to know. it was about this point i started to cry.
reports started coming in from the pentagon & a plane crash in pennsylvania. the scope of the attack started to take shape with me.
the buildings fell and i continued to weep for the people, there were many innocent people involved with this tragedy, but my thoughts kept going to the firefighters. why? probably because i had some understanding of what they were doing and what they were thinking.
the day went on, i don't think i ever made it to the office that day. we did have a prayer service that evening. i watched the television pretty much all day taking in as much information to try and make sense.
as seems to be my nature, i would ask myself, why were people so angry with us that they would do this? who have we forgotten that they would do such a thing? is there something we could have done to better tend to the angst that brought on this attack? what is my response?
the following days are the following days. people say it changed, i suppose it did.. did it change for the better? what did our response flow from? compassion? pride? understanding? anger? fear? love? the best i could suggest is to say it was a mixed bag... that's what i remember
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