9/11

Never Forget

My video from a couple years ago. Continue to remember, not just those who died, but the way the country came together and we supported each other no matter our heritage, religion, language, or skin color.

Fifteen Years Gone: Never Forget

It is not about looking back and fanning fires of hatred and anger.
It is not about revenge any more, if it ever should have been.
It is about hope
and freedom
and being Americans together.

If we keep looking back we will never move forward.
If we only remember what happened we will leave those who died stuck in a world of no hope.

To look at what we can do and be - Americans of all colors and faith, all ethnic and cultural varieties...

that is the ongoing legacy of 9/11

a spur to move into a world where freedom is possible for all
and an incentive to sing our own individual hymns to freedom.

The video I produced last year after my visit to Freedom Tower, One World Trade Center holds up that hope with the inspiration of Oscar Peterson's moving Hymn to Freedom. Never Forget- and keep moving forward.

14-Years and Not Forgetting!

One World Observatory (2)

Eastern Panorama from One World Observatory Toward Brooklyn

Here are more of the pictures I took a few weeks ago from the World Trade Center, One World Observatory.

(Above and below) 

Two views of the transportation hub being built 

for the World Trade Center. 

Yep- it is in the shape of a bird taking wing.

It is an impressive building.

 

The covering along the fence surrounding the ongoing construction was neat to see!

One World Observatory (1)

Western Panorama from One World Observatory

Here are some of the pictures I took on our visit to One World Observatory at the World Trade Center in New York. It felt good to be there- a victory over those who tried to destroy it. Watch for more coming, esp. as we get to the 9/11 anniversary in two weeks.

 

The View from Above

We had the pleasure and honor of going to the World Trade Center a couple weeks ago. I will be posting some of the pictures at a later date and I am hoping to have another video in honor of 9/11. But for today, here's the video I put together looking out and down from the top of One World Trade Center. Enjoy.

Lent Picture A Day (18): Speak

If I could speak all the languages of earth and of angels, but didn’t love others, I would only be a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal.
- I Corinthians 13:1

Thirteen Years After

Remembering the Pain

The National 9/11 Museum was dedicated and opened today for special visitors.

Watching the report on NBC Nightly News last evening was a moment of pain and sadness. The mementos, the artifacts, the memories it raises for any one of us who was alive and aware that dark September morning are so overwhelming that they have boxes of tissues available throughout the museum- and exit doors for those who want to leave early.

I found myself getting emotional as Brian Williams showed us some of the exhibits. Partly it was what he was showing us and partly the way seeing some of the pictures and thinking of the day triggers those parts of my brain that were triggered that morning. That's how the brain works. It just goes back to that moment. I even still have that when I see a lone jet taking off across the Minneapolis skyline. Or when I go to the Mall of America and remember that it was one of the potential targets. Next I think of the fact that our daughter was in Spain at that time and her panicked phone calls wondering what was happening and we were thousands of miles away and suddenly, with all flights grounded we couldn't get her home if we had to.

All that and more below consciousness happened in that short moment of the item on the news. And I wasn't even in New York when it happened! I can't imagine the depth of reaction for those who were.

It is good to remember, of course. The firefighters, first responders, innocent bystanders, people locked in an airplane who were simply heading off for the day. They should not be forgotten.

I also hope we remember that this is the result of extremism and that extremism in revenge is not any better than the original perpetrators. Neither is it good to hold onto hatred for a whole group of people who are as innocent as any of us who weren't even there. If it is right to paint a whole ethnic or religious group with such a broad brush, how can we say they shouldn't do the same to us. The vicious cycle of hatred and violence will only make more hatred and more pain and more memories that none of us want to have.

The museum opens to the general public next week. I am not sure I want to go to the museum itself. But I want to remember those who have worked to bring peace instead of war; hope instead of hate; possibility instead of more destruction.

In any case, may we never forget and in response work for peace and reconciliation.

A Moment to Pause and Remember

Two Quotes for this day, twelve years later:

“What separates us from the animals, what separates us from the chaos, is our ability to mourn people we’ve never met.” -David Levithan

“When I look out the window, I exhale a prayer of thanks
for the color green, for my children’s safety, for the simple acts of faith like planting a garden that helped see us through another spring, another summer. And I inhale some kind of promise to protect my kids’ hopes and good intentions we began with in this country. Freedom of speech, the protection of diversity — these are the most important ingredients of American civil life and my own survival. If I ever took them for granted, I don’t now.” -Barbara Kingsolver, novelist

Eleven Years On

The Weekend of Remembrance (3): Ten Years After

We have gone ten years now. We live in a post-9/11 world. So much happened. So little happened. We have become used to what is and find it hard to remember what was.

I'm not talking about air security and having to take off our shoes or package little bits of liquid in bags if we are to carry them on. It is not about the Department of Homeland Security agents I saw by the train platform at Target Field, concrete barriers at the Mall of America, or big dump trucks blocking streets at the Metrodome. Those are inconveniences that we pay for living in a world where, in reality, we are less safe than we think we are. Security changes like that, in fact, make me feel at least a little safer when I fly. I'll put up with the lines, thank you, just as I put up with intense and personal searching by El Al Airlines almost 40 years ago when we flew to Israel.

I am pleased with the respect we have learned to pay to firemen, first responders, police, public servants. September 11 taught us some amazing things about bravery as I commented yesterday. May we never forget or take for granted the potential dangers they face for us.

But several things bother me as I ponder the past decade.

• First is that there were so many opportunities lost. For those of us in the church we experienced a return to church right after 9/11. I gather, though, that all research shows that it didn't last. It was momentary and gone before the year was out. Sure, some of that was looking for comfort- and I know many found it during those days. But why didn't people stay? What didn't they find. I fear we were found wanting and they left.

When people were searching for soul answers, we didn't provide them a way to find them.

• Second, we also missed the opportunity to understand and grow in our national acceptance - and embrace of diversity. The divisions and underlying racism, distrust of those different, and a Christian triumphalism united so fully with American patriotism has done us more harm than good. As I said the other day, these are still underlying layers of the American history- our American original sin of slavery. Sadly, 9/11 brought those out. When faced with fear- fear and powerlessness- we turn to an "us" vs. "them" way of living. I am afraid we haven't seen the end of such attitudes. 9/11 didn't cause them- our reactions of fear and anger brought them to the surface. When we get that way it is difficult to be rational and learn that differences in style, religion, color do not make enemies. Extremism does that.

• And third, and most devastating to our nation as a whole is that we have now lived through a decade of war. I am not an isolationist. I understand some of the things that led us into war in Afghanistan (though not in Iraq.) But we have now become so used to war- 10 years of it next month- that it becomes normal. This IS part and parcel of our 9/11 response. And it scares me.

War does not bring peace. Nor does anger and a desire to lash out in irrational ways. War will not make us feel safer. We become immune to the horrors. We become more war-like in our attitudes.

We also can fall apart as a nation. Economically. The Soviet Union was finally undermined by a number of factors, but an unending war in Afghanistan played a big part. We have had unfunded, unending wars for a decade. $1.2 trillion has been spent - unfunded. No wonder our national debt soared in these years. We had a budget SURPLUS in 2001. It is gone.

We have lost opportunities in the men and women who have been killed as a result of the wars. They are our families and friends. We continue to lose them to depression, suicide, alcohol and drug abuse.

As I listened to classical music radio yesterday as well as some of the remembrance programs, I was transported back, of course, to the memories and fears of that day. But I also remembered the way, for that brief moment, we came together as a nation. I remembered the feeling of wanting to hang on to who we are and can be as a nation and not allow the terrorists to turn us into mirror images of their irrational hatred. You see, I believe that we are better than that. We have an underlying ethic and code of morals under-girding our history.

We have not always lived up to it- we are, after all, a nation of imperfect people.

But I still believe we can be better than we have been. I believe that we can embrace those roots of freedom and diversity that we have so imperfectly followed some days. Those roots can be our source of nourishment when the 9/11-type events strike us. And they can, if we listen, allow us to grow more fully each and every year as a source of hope.

The Weekend of Remembrance (2): 9/11

from Empire State Building, 1993

The Day and Its Days
Perhaps every generation, especially in a world that is as connected as we are, has those days.

Pearl Harbor.
The End of WW II.
JFK's assassination.

Now there was 9/11. Today it is seared in memory.

First words come flowing out:

• Uncertainty
• Fear
• Disbelief
• Searching
• Questions
• Phone Calls
• Absolute disbelief

Ground Zero, June 2006

Our daughter was in Spain. She had only been there a little less than two weeks and her Spanish wasn't good enough to get the full drift of what was happening. All she knew was it was something BIG and BAD.

She called. "What it is? What's happening?"

We didn't know, of course. All we had was the TV reports that told us little- because they knew little.

Those words were what we went through. We didn't know what to do- but we knew it was not going to be business as usual. Even in a country as physically large as ours, we figured there is more to this than New York. Then we hear of the Pentagon and a deserted field in southwestern Pennsylvania. Airplanes are grounded. The cloud of death where there used to be the towers.

Normal? We wanted normal but had no idea if- or how- it would show up. So normal became little things. For my wife it was the appearance of the mail carrier walking into the church office with the day's mail. For me it was going up the street to sign up for DSL high-speed Internet. Innocuous details. Nothing out of the ordinary.

Which is what we wanted.



Then comes the desire to do something. Calling other local pastors to decide what we as churches could do. From that moment of paralysis to a moment of some kind of possibilities, whatever they might be. We kept busy, we planned prayer services. We stared at TV. As we worked on our prayer service we tried to figure out what it meant and what we wanted to have happen.


What we wanted was unity and a sense of purpose in it all. With no planes flying and people all over the country trying to put together some ways to get home, we were all stuck- physically and metaphorically. We had to be "at home." We had to look at ourselves and figure it out.

We then learned of the everyday heroes on the flight over Pennsylvania. We discovered the amazing bravery, sense of purpose, and dedication of firefighters and police officers and workers helping others through the cloud of unknown.

Slowly things began to settle. And we saw more everyday  heroes.

The New York Yankees playing in the Bronx.
David Letterman's amazing opening monologue when returning to the air.
Jon Stewart giving us perspective.

Ground Zero, June 2006

The tensions continued as anthrax showed up and questions kept popping up. Everyone kept telling us that nothing was ever going to be the same again, but we didn't know what that would mean. Everyday life resumed, but we were no longer as naive about our security, or perhaps our invincibility. Perhaps we even began to wonder over those initial weeks if this might bring about the same kind of uncertainty and distrust in our government's ability to protect us as Watergate had done almost 30 years earlier.




But for me it still goes back to two iconic pictures.

First is the one here on the right.

No, there us nothing new to say. It still rings loud and clear.

It describes 9/11 with a sense of ongoing hope and promise.

Second is the picture of Father Mychal Judge being carried from the rubble.

There is a human face and amazing story in Fr. Mychal's life and death. An everyday hero who has come to symbolize so much of what is good about so many people.

From Wikipedia:

Upon hearing the news that the World Trade Center had been hit, Father Judge rushed to the site. He was met by the Mayor of New York, Rudolph Giuliani, who asked him to pray for the city and its victims. Judge administered the Last Rites to some lying on the streets, then entered the lobby of the World Trade Center North Tower, where an emergency command post was organized. There he continued offering aid and prayers for the rescuers, the injured and dead.

When the South Tower collapsed at 9:59 am, debris went flying through the North Tower lobby, killing many inside, including Judge. At the moment he was struck in the head and killed, Judge was repeatedly praying aloud, "Jesus, please end this right now! God, please end this!", according to Judge's biographer and New York Daily News columnist Michael Daly.

Shortly after his death, a NYPD lieutenant, who had also been buried in the collapse, found Judge's body and assisted by two firemen and two civilian bystanders carried it out of the North Tower lobby to nearby St Peter's Church. This event was captured in the documentary film 9/11, shot by Jules and Gedeon Naudet. Shannon Stapleton, photographer from Reuters, photographed Judge's body being carried out of the rubble by five men. It became one of the most famous images related to 9/11. The Philadelphia Weekly reports the photograph is considered an American Pietà.

Mychal Judge was designated as "Victim 0001," recognized as the first official victim of the September 11, 2001 attacks. Other victims perished before him including air crew, passengers, and occupants of the towers, but Judge was the first certified fatality because his was the first body to be recovered and taken to the coroner.

Fr. Judge, a recovering alcoholic for the 23 years prior to 9/11, had a prayer. It has become, for me, one of those prayers that keeps me grounded in the right ways and right places:

Lord, take me where you want me to go;
Let me meet who you want me to meet;
Tell me what you want me to say, and
Keep me out of your way.

— Fr. Mychal Judge, O.F.M. Chaplain, New York Fire Department Copyright ©2001 Holy Name Province

The Weekend of Remembrance (1): The World Before

Fall, 1972, from Greenwich Village before the Towers were complete

As we begin this weekend of remembrance of September 11, 2001, I tried to think back to the world before 9/11. It is hard. It would be tempting to make it a nostalgic experience of how good things were. We could get on airplanes without taking our shoes off or we could accompany our friends or family to the gate or even meet them there when their plane arrived instead of having to wait by the baggage claims. But those are superficial. I think that under it all were some difficulties just waiting to happen.

First, I think we were quite insulated. Even the previous attempt at the World Trade Center did not shake us into an awareness of how vulnerable we could be. The information we have heard since 9/11 about lack of preparations, inability to cross-communicate between groups of responders, different government agencies not being willing to believe such things could happen, only proves our issues were alive and waiting.

Second, the undercurrents of much that we have seen happen were there in the midst of that insulated outlook. The Clinton Presidency had just ended and the extremes of opinions and even hatred of him and his administration among some was still palpable. The seeds had been sown by the deep and growing ideological divide started in Clinton's mid-term by Newt Gingrich et. al. The second undercurrent was the racism and "triumphalism" always just under the surface of American history. Even when not obvious, it is there as this burning fire of distrust, mistrust, and even hatred. It is a sinister force that only needs an incident like 9/11 to bring it to its worst.

Summer 1987, from Battery Park

But the third and most worrisome issue at the time, in my opinion, was the extreme "Cold War" mentality which had come to power under George W. Bush. Or even more to the point the "War Mentality" that was there and looking for a way to go to war. Violence was ready to erupt. Without the Soviet Union to kick around anymore, new enemies, new targets of our might needed to be found.

It was only a matter of time.

Yes, it is easy to look back and see these - or whatever particular issues your politics or world-view sees. When it is happening, it is out of sight. That is why these evens are so shocking, surprising, world-shattering. They are, in the end, not predictable. If it hadn't been 9/11, something else would have happened. When we are caught by surprise it is always a break in history, a jump in our personal, national, or even world narratives.

Inconveniences happen as a result. New patterns emerge. The old order has shifted. But the undercurrents were there. Many of them still are. Some are more obvious- out in the open. Others are waiting for the next unpredictable event.

I Don't Even Know What To Say

So I will let this picture taken in June 2006 say it for me.

Reminders from Space

As 9/11/2009 comes to an end a lot more calmly than did the one 8 years ago, some pictures from space posted at The Best Article Everyday, remind us of the magnitude of what happened as can be seen from even 250miles away.

Here's one from the Space Station:







LINK to page.

Eight-Years Gone

Those iconic towers in lower Manhattan in 1993, from the top of the Empire State Building at sunset.
Statue of Liberty barely visible in center of picture.

We knew that day eight years ago that things would never be the same again. In those few short moments of horror and disbelief we knew that what we had assumed since the end of World War II was gone. Our American self-assurance was challenged and we responded. Some of it good; some not so good; and some may one day be found to be ways that hurt us more than we were hurt. Yes, the world is different.

Skyline of lower Manhattan from Liberty Island, 1987.

I was struck in the picture above from Liberty Island, that the New York harbor haze made an interesting contrast in the picture, perhaps metaphorically. Over there is what isn't anymore. The Towers represent September 10, 2001 and before. We stand here in the still green grass of liberty and look back. We wonder and ponder and dream.

We can't go back. The world is different. We are no longer as separated from the rest of the world as we used to be. Even North Korea has talked about throwing missiles our way. We have gone to war twice in these eight years- Afghanistan and Iraq. Neither has turned out the way we hoped and Afghanistan is looking more troubling than we would like. Our nation is more divided than we have been since those turbulent 60s, both the 1860s and 1960s. We refuse to let our children watch the President of the United States on TV. THAT is division unlike we have seen in a very, very long time.

Yet- YET- we elected our first African-American President. We are surviving a difficult economic recession. We are still free. The liberals will say that freedom is in spite of Bush; the conservatives say it is in spite of Obama. Neither are right!! We are free because of Bush and Obama and our basic American freedoms that we have not lost. In difficult times as we have faced over the past 8 years those freedoms can get a little tattered around the edges. It is not the first time that our freedoms got shaky. They did in the Civil War when Lincoln suspended habeus corpus. They did in WW II when we put our own citizens of Japanese origin into internment camps. They did in the 1960s when we fought each other over the length of hair and whether you were born before or after 1946.

But that grass on Liberty Island is still green. It is not because of Democrats or Republicans, liberals or conservatives. It is green because of you and me- the great American people. We may be cynical at times, wishing a pox on both of the extremes, wanting to be left alone to enjoy our liberties. We may be frustrated at times that things aren't moving as fast in some directions- and too fast in others. We are still proud that we elected an African-American president, even if we don't agree with everything he says, does, or wants. We want him to succeed as president, for if he fails- so do we, and it takes a lot of work to rebuild.

Overall we have not forgotten that we are Americans. Of that we are proud. We are proud that we can still help the least and the lost. In many ways we still believe the words on that Statue barely visible in the top picture. All of us except Native Americans have benefited from the liberty and freedom presented in those words...

"Keep, ancient lands, your storied pomp!" cries she
With silent lips. "Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!"

—Emma Lazarus, 1883

9/11 - We Do Not Forget

In my mind 9/11 is firmly linked with my daughter. This picture was from the first time she was in NYC with me- a mission trip in 1993 right after she finished 6th grade. Those iconic twin towers were so photogenic and strong and even permanent. They made the lower Manhattan skyline shine with everything that NYC seems to represent. While they were never as beautiful as the Empire State and Chrysler Buildings in mid-town, they were a beautiful sight in their own right.


On 9/11/01, as I wrote about last year, she was in Spain as a junior in college. She had been there only 2 weeks. We had seen her off right from the gate at the airport. We were allowed to do that in those days. As the awful story developed on that Tuesday morning she called wanting as much information as possible. Things were falling apart, it seemed, and she needed information - and contact - with home. We realized that we were cut off from each other physically. Only cell phones, more heavily in use in Europe at that time, kept us together. We couldn't even hop a jet to get to her.


Then when she came home for Christmas the change in the world was reflected by her. She commented that the US had changed since she left. It was symbolized by all the flags everywhere, but it was felt in the anger of the American soul at what had happened. She could sense it, although she wasn't able to put it into those words. Living in Europe during those months she had seen the wonderful way many in the world gathered around the Americans, supporting them, caring for them, helping them cope.


Today we know that we blew that opportunity. The anger under the surface that she may have sensed was only too soon to explode into the Iraq war- the over-confident invasion that had little real support anywhere but in the US. Today there's not even much of that left. We have seen how anger and a desire to lash out at anyone just to feel better about ourselves actually makes us feel worse. It diminishes us. It loses any morality we may have had on our side.


Which brings me back to my daughter. The world in which she turned 21 four and a half months after 9/11 is not the one before that. It is a much more uncertain world. It is one that is more divided than we have been in a while- as a nation and in the world. Iraq is becoming her generation's Vietnam. George Bush her Johnson/Nixon. It is a world we are now passing on to her.


I wish I could do something to change it. I can't, any more than my parents and their generation could in 1968. All I can do is give her my support and love and advice. And vote next year, although that doesn't seem to offer a lot at this point.


And pray.

Is This The Way to Respond?

It is the day before 9/11/07. Six years into this "new world" of terrorism-based thinking. Yet we still don't seem to get it. Here from yesterday's news:

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Seemingly taunting Osama bin Laden, President Bush's homeland security adviser said Sunday the fugitive al-Qaida leader is "virtually impotent" beyond his ability to hide away and spread anti-American propaganda.

The provocative characterization came just days after bin Laden attracted international attention with the release of a video in which he ridicules President Bush about the Iraq war and reminds the world that he not been captured.

Ahead of the sixth anniversary of the Sept. 11 terrorist strikes, White House aide Frances Fragos Townsend made a clear attempt to diminish the influence - or the perception - of the man who masterminded those attacks.

"This is about the best he can do," Townsend said of bin Laden. "This is a man on a run, from a cave, who's virtually impotent other than these tapes."
--Associated Press

This kind of thinking scares me. It is like the "Bring it on" challenge early in the Iraq War (which they have done, by the way, leading to a lot more loss of life that we thought.) They have just insulted bin Laden and challenged him to show how powerful he really thinks he is. They have just thrown down the gauntlet and said, "Bring it on you wuss." I bet he doesn't like that one little bit.

It sounds like 9/10/01 instead of 9/10/07. On that Monday no one, no one, expected anything from him. He was not a real threat. Iraq was the threat. No one was thinking about airplanes filled with civilians as weapons. No one thought the Twin Towers would ever fall. Life was good and quiet.

9/10/07 is not good and quiet. Bin Laden is still at large, Saddam Hussein is dead, Afghanistan's Taliban are still around with reduced power but not gone, Iraq is becoming a quagmire and perhaps even more divisive than Vietnam. And we are as cocky as ever.

It makes me want to sing the chorus of the great anti-war song, Where Have All the Flowers Gone:

When will we ever learn? When will we ever learn?

I pray that another 9/11 won't happen somewhere else anytime, let alone soon. But I fear that when we tease the rattlesnake he will want to strike.