One Day in September- 35 Years Ago
Surfing the movie channels the other morning I was brought up short at IFC, the Independent Film Channel. They were showing a documentary made in 1999 about the Munich Olympics and the hostage taking and massacre of Israeli athletes by Palestinian terrorists.

It brought back one of the most difficult and awful days of I had up to that point. Those hours when Jim McCay became more than an ABC sportscaster and was the eyes and ears of the world. That final moment- "They're all gone" forever etched into memory along with the shadowy head that kept peeking out of the door.

I can't say that it changed my life or the world, but it was one of those reference moments when what you once understood changed. Looking back now, after 9/11 and the other bombings in Madrid and London, perhaps that can be seen as a significant first strike in an ongoing terrorist campaign. Or it was the first explosion onto the world of a different (from our perspective) type of war, one where civilians were the prime targets and not just unlucky bystanders.

But then again, maybe it brought into harsh focus the brutality of all wars. In this contemporary world all wars have more collateral damage (don't you just hate that phrase) than ever before. It can be the fire bombings of Tokyo and Dresden, the V2s launched at Britain, or the threat of nuclear war- no one is safe in any war.

Ten months after Munich my wife and I traveled to Israel. We went on El Al airlines in a time when they were the only ones with high security. Later our friend who took us to the airport told us he stayed around to watch us leave- and ours was the only plane to take off perpendicular to the terminal instead of parallel. We felt safe.

Until time to leave. As we got to the airport in Tel Aviv security seemed particularly tight. We were given an even more thorough going over with an even deeper search into our luggage before we were allowed anywhere near the waiting area. It was only when we finally sat down in the pre-dawn darkness that we saw the reason for the security. There had been an attack at the Athens airpport the evening before. All of a sudden you look around and wonder.

As long as there is war, we will be struggling with these issues. There is no answer. There is no way to be 100% safe. And that has to be okay. Life has always been like this. Life today for most of us in the Western so-called "civilized" world don't see it as often. Which is why 9/11 has so unnerved us. But we are not different, better, or more civilized. In the end, we have just been fortunate to own the whole continent we sit on.

I realize this sounds pessimistic and scary and fatalistic. Believe me, I'm not. I still believe in the possibilities of peace. I still believe in the possibilities of a human soul created in the image of the Creator God. I still believe that we are redeemable. Able to be perfect? No. But together we can work on newer ways as we move beyond the human frailities and look to the ways of peace as more than dreams- they are things we must also work for. When we do that, we have been told, we truly are the children of God.