9/11 Thoughts

  Every year on 9/11 we stop for a moment and remember where we were and what we were doing when we heard about the attacks.  We relive the moment and the emotions, the shock and the horror at the violence that we were witnessing.  At first, most of us who were removed from the nightmare didn't believe it was real.  When the reality of it set in, we were numb with shock and grief at what we were witnessing.  While most of us are lucky to carry no physical scars from that day, the nation and its citizens carry deep emotional scars that will never heal.  We were forever changed on that day.

  Last Sunday, I was panicking to think about how to talk with the children about sin during the children's message.  I briefly considered reading the book of Leviticus, but after deciding that some of the children might get antsy due to its length, I talked about broken dishes.

  When I was a kid, I remember dropping a glass onto one of our dinner plates.  It broke in 3 big pieces, and as I looked down in disbelief I remember wanting so badly to be able to glue it back together and make it as good as new.

  I was like this with everything I broke as a kid.  Whenever something broke, be it a dinner plate or a Matchbox car, I always wanted to find a way to glue it back together so it would be just like new.  We would all forget that it was ever broken in the first place and we could go on with life just as it was.  The harsh truth that it would never be the same, that some things cannot be fixed, still hurts when I am confronted by it.  I still have a globe in my garage that cannot be fixed, that cannot be glued back to its original state, but I refuse to throw it away.  I refuse to admit that it cannot be fixed, that it cannot be repaired.  Even with a 25 year old globe, it's too hard for me to give up the idea of restoration.

  This is why I struggle with 9/11.  I want things to be repaired, to go back to the way they were.  I want healing to occur in such a way that we can go back to the relative peace and tranquility of those days, before we were in two wars and knew what Al-Qaeda was, before they made (and I watched, and cried) movies about a global hunt for a man living in Pakistan.  I want to find some glue to fix things.  I want to creep around the flaming sword that God fixed in the Garden of Eden when Adam & Eve were expunged, to find a way back into the world of innocence and purity.  That's what my heart longs for.

  But we can't fix the scars that were seared into our beings on 9/11.  The pain and the chaos have become a part of our national identity.  Even if we could set aside the images in our collective minds, we'd still have fellow Americans whose lives will never be the same because of the friends and loved ones they lost on that fateful day.  Their lives were tossed asunder, and they will never be the same, and we cannot pretend that it is ok.

  Since we cannot sneak back into the Garden, since we cannot find the glue to repair this wound, we must look forward with hope.  As a Christian, I am defined by the hope beyond death that I cling to.  In the face of the terror of death, there is another sword, this one coming from my Savior, with which he shall vanquish the last enemy to be destroyed, death.  He shall conquer, and because of this I can have hope beyond death.

  But it's also important that this hope beyond death take hold of my life before death.  If I am content to rest secure in my identity as a Christian, I believe I'm missing a large part of my call.  My hope beyond death should transform how I live here and now, so that I can be an agent of hope in a world that all-too-easily turns to despair.   I want to let the light shine through me so that the darkness may retreat, knowing that its days are numbered.  I want the hope within me to spread healing in this world, so that local communities and distant countries can share in hope rather than despair.  My faith should matter in the here and now, and I want to be an agent of peace, sowing seeds that might grow into might oak trees that might change the landscape of this world, in the hope that we will, one day, all live in peace in this world.  I trust in Christ to bring that day about, and I hope that my life takes part in this wondrous mission of God.