Gotta Wear Shades

What were you doing thirteen years ago, today? This is the question of the day. For those of you just emerging from your fog of comfy bed, blankets and slumber, let me remind you, today is September 11th. If that isn't enough to rouse you I will call it by the name that became the trademark of tragedy - today is the anniversary of 9-11.

So what were you doing about now 13 years ago? Most everyone can answer that question. I can. I was sitting in my office of Cumberland Mountain School, a childcare center which also served as a lab school to train people for careers in early care and education. Helping to begin Cumberland Mountain School is what brought our family to Tennessee. Previously I had worked for the Center for Early Childhood Professional Development at the University of Oklahoma; both Joe, the girls and I being Oklahoma born and bred. The day of the 9-11 tragedy I was in a new office, in a new job, reflecting on an old feeling; fear!

Sitting in the office of a child care you do not have on a television nor a radio. It is all child interaction all the time. It was the ringing of the telephone that began the delivery of the message for the day as well as the aftermath that followed on September 11, 2001. 

You see, that is what we remember. That is what we think of when asked, "Where were you that day?" We may remember the incident as a brief marker of time but our thoughts go to where we were, what we were doing and what unfolded that day. For me I remember being in my office and barely leaving due to answering the phone comforting and assuring scared parents, calling to check on my kids, myself, and preparing a re-release of an article I had written around September of 1995 following the Oklahoma City bombing. The article was about reducing and preventing stress for children during troubling times of tragedy. I had been asked to write the article because I directed the "other" federal child care center when Timothy McVey killed a total of 168 people, 15 of which were children; babies at the America's Kids DayCare. Many parents had the same thought; one day care was bombed, is someone trying to recreated what happened before and could their children be in danger. 

As the day of September 11th progressed into the evening the impact of the OKC bombing resonates through out our family. Jill has a respiratory event, often brought on by stress. Jill had spent the day of the bombing terrified because all she had been told was "The federal day care had blown up and everyone there was dead." She knew that is where her mom and sister were. Later the day of the fall of the twin towers on 9-11, Jill reported that the minute she first heard, her thoughts went to worry over me and her sister, although she couldn't figure out why. We know now she flashed bak to the stress of the the bombing day. Alli was only a little shut down. She never understood what was going on. She was only six years old but knew "something" was happening. 

Why in the world does our mind go to bad things when we look at remembering tragedy. Why do we go to the fear? Why do we not look at how God over came evil in that day? First! 

We, as believers and followers in Christ are asked to remember. As Christ for told of his painful, impending sacrifice, He sets forth a plan, a system to remember that very sacrifice. But not in tragedy but in a way that displays God overcoming evil. As United Methodists we recite this plan as we share in the act of Holy Eucharist. But God reigns supreme in the moment of intended evil through this very sentiment:
       Make them (the bread and cup) be for us the body and blood of Christ,
       that we may be for the world the body of Christ;
       redeemed by his blood.

Evil wants us to remember the pain, the fear. God wants us to remember His glory in the redemption of the moment. Evil when we when we are lost is misery. God is glorified when we lift our heads and find His light in the darkness. 

Many rose above fear on 9-11. Those that struggled to save the injured, miracle stories of those that survived against all odds to live and share messages to others. What if those in US Flight 93 has stayed in their dark, panicked moment and huddled down? It is suspected that pane was headed for the White House. Many passengers like Todd Beamer  were recorded on phone calls for help leading other passengers in the Lord's Prayer and the 23rd Psalm, then with a cry of "Let's Roll!" rushed the hijackers bringing the plane down in an empty field short of it's intended target. They lifted their heads above the fear and saw the Light of God's glory! 


Looking to today's headlines, we have cause for concern. The threat that began the terror on 9-11 has grown, not diminished. The response to unrest is most often more violence - not peace; often in the form of terrorism. So what will you do this day or days to follow? Look up to find the light beyond the darkness or bury your head and allow dark to befall you? Sir Edmond Burke said, "Those who don't now history are doomed to repeat it." But allowing history be that...His Story eradicates fear. His perfect love casts out the fear of the past and lets the light shine in the future.  The your future will be so bright... you should know the rest.