Most people recall where they were and what they were doing that
day. I remember driving to work and
listening to the news. The reporter said
that an airplane had just crashed into the Twin Towers in New York. Having been to New York, and having flown out
of La Guardia, I remembered the pilot guiding the plane into a steep climb in
order to miss the tall buildings in Manhattan.
I assumed that the crash was caused by a lapse in judgment from a pilot
who was just leaving La Guardia.
Moments later I arrived at the office, and I heard the news
that another aircraft had crashed into the second tower. It was not pilot error. When I heard that, the first word that came
out of my mouth was “terrorist.” I
called Ann. She hadn’t been watching the news, and she couldn’t believe I was
serious. Of course I would never joke
about something like that.
By this time, we had hooked up a television set at the
office, and we saw smoke coming from the Pentagon in Washington. We watched the towers fall. We didn’t get a
whole lot of work done that day. Later,
there was a report of another plane that went down in Pennsylvania. We knew something was terribly wrong in our
country. Even so, Pennsylvania, Washington,
and New York seemed a long way from Shreveport, Louisiana. Then we learned that the president had been
flown to Barksdale Air Force Base. That
was less than fifteen miles from our house.
Suddenly, we realized the disaster affected every one.
Later that day I received a call from a church secretary of
a local church in a different faith community from my own. She told me that their church was hosting an
interfaith prayer service that evening, and asked if I would participate. I felt honored to do so, and quickly
accepted the invitation.
When I arrived I was immediately taken to the church office
where the order of service was being hastily organized. As I looked across at the ministers in that room,
I realized they represented several different theological persuasions. On another day, and in other circumstances,
we probably would have felt some strong points of disagreement with each other. I will never forget one thing that happened
in that room. The local minister’s wife
was helping her husband put the program together. She said, “Regardless of our differences,
today we can agree on one thing. What we
saw today was evil.”
And so it was.
Because of that terrifying interruption in our daily lives, we forgot
about social, cultural, political, economic, and even theological differences
for a short period of time. In the days
ahead, the popularity of George W. Bush would soar. By the time he left office, it would be at
the bottom. Why was it different on
9-11? Because something had happened that threatened the security of us all.
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