That terrible day - Rector's Rambling for September 9, 2018

Seventeen years have passed since that most horrific tragedy struck the American nation.  On September 11, we will once again recall that terrible day, when our country was attacked by those who hijacked airplanes and slammed them into the World Trade Center in New York, the Pentagon in Washington, D.C., and a fourth plane was taken down by a passenger rebellion before it could strike another symbol of American commerce or government.

I remember before that day listening to people say, “where were you when _____” (fill in the blank with an historic event).  Although I could remember Nixon’s resignation, and Reagan’s and Pope John Paul II’s shootings, I did not have the poignant moments of the Kennedy assassinations, Dr. Martin Luther King, or the first walk on the moon (I am too young for those).

But, like so many of us here, I remember vividly and painfully hearing on the radio about the first plane crash, watching on TV the second one, and then the third while I drove in to St. John’s.  Within the next two hours, downtown Detroit became a ghost town as employers sent people home, since no one could concentrate on anything but what was happening in New York, Pennsylvania, and Washington, D.C.  And, of course, there was the fear that another attack would happen here or in Chicago.

The world changed on that day.  Seventeen years later, we still have troops deployed in an unstable Iraq and Afghanistan, the threat of the Taliban has been superseded by ISIS, and our interaction with allies and foes has been colored by the events of that day.

The other thing I remember about that week was how the country turned with earnest prayer to God.  Attendance at worship spiked, public prayer vigils were held (I officiated at several), and people turned for answers, comfort, and relief to the One who is bigger than all these things and events.  But it didn’t last.  Before long, we were back to bitter bickering in politics, and slackening attendance at worship.  Would that we could be as united, and worshipful, without a critical event to push us into it.

May God continue to bless us as a nation, even with our shortcomings and failings as human beings.  God is still good, all the time.