The first I knew that something dreadful had happened was when I got a phone call from my son, checking to make sure I was in the country and not traveling.
"I'm in town; I'm heading down to a dental appointment - why do you ask?"
And Shannon proceeded to give me the most concise and complete information I would get all day. He said a plane struck the World Trade Center and it had collapsed. I, of course, thought 'small aircraft' - which couldn't have much of an impact (only one tower had collapsed, at the time of his call).
"No, a jet," he told me. And I proceeded to listen to news radio while driving to the dentist and then back up to St Jude's in Burbank for our regular Tuesday afternoon "prophetic intercession" prayer group.
We were all stunned but so grateful to be gathering together for intentional prayer - that was very important to each of us.
I noticed, in a matter of days, that nearly all my friends were very traumatized by the event, considerably more than I was. And I realized it was because they were watching television: they kept seeing the planes go into the towers; they kept seeing the towers collapse.
But I didn't have access to broadcast or cable television at that point. I saw some still photos online but I wasn't glued to a screen, watching it play out, over and over again. And our brains don't know from "instant replays" - it's effectively the same onslaught, repeated.
So I was grateful not to be connected to all the voices competing for my attention, the "if it bleeds it leads" philosophy of mainstream news.
On the first anniversary, I rented a DVD compilation of footage and saw all sorts of images that I'd never seen (e.g., people jumping from the floors above the impact) and I wept and prayed all over again. Later anniversaries I've watched United 93, in part because I find its "real time" approach to the story especially effective. It's easy to forget how long it took "the powers that be" to recognize what was going on (there was a military test exercise scheduled and that caused a lot of confusion: is this "real world" or is this part of the exercise?) and, ultimately, the courage of the passengers and crew to fight for control of the airplane and, failing that, to at least make sure the plane wasn't used as one more massive bomb in a terrorist assault against the United States.
I occasionally watch just the beginning of Working Girl (yes, Harrison Ford, Melanie Griffiths, and Sigourney Weaver) because its opening sequence brings me to tears every time, a hero shot of the World Trade Center. And I'll often continue and watch the entire film because it's charming and I enjoy the performances.
So now, twenty-five years later, I have a very hard time understanding what New York City has done to itself. The German philosopher, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, famously said that history teaches us that man learns nothing from history - and I think this is an example of that very dynamic at work.
Over these past twenty-five years we've had a concerted attack on the very idea of "truth," our society cynically returning to Pilate's query to Jesus Christ, "what is truth?" We've confused victims and oppressors; we've fostered empathy for criminals and toughened our skin against the legitimate complaints of their victims. We have lost our mooring as a culture and are starting to spin. We may have occasional pauses in the destruction but, in my opinion, the ultimate solution will be seen coming in the clouds, the return of the True King. My hope is built on nothing less than Jesus Christ, Creator, Savior, and King.
"Today, if you hear His voice, do not harden your hearts..." (Psalm 95:7b-8a).
Finally, an amazing account and a different perspective to consider:
