How 9/11 Changed Me

In September of 2001 I was working for a Christian book publisher in Tulsa as editorial director of a brand new imprint. We were all very busy with our first list—our first books published under the new name. There were 350 employees total working for this publisher, and many would gather on the ground floor of our building for a time of prayer each morning. Then we would all disperse to our various floors and offices to make magic—or at least to put verbs and nouns together trying to make some semblance of sense.

The morning of September 11 we had just finished with morning prayer and I was jammed into an elevator that took me to my floor—the 48th floor. The tower I worked in had (and still has) 60 stories with a great view of Tulsa from just about any window. As I was getting off of the elevator my boss said, “I just heard there was some kind of explosion at the World Trade Center in New York.” Again? I thought. In February of 1993, six terrorists ignited a truck bomb in the parking garage of the WTC, killing seven. Did something like this happen again?

I turned on a radio I kept on my desk. It was set on a music station, but this morning they were carrying network news. That’s when I knew something serious had occurred. Others on my floor gathered into my office to hear the news anchor talk about the first plane that had flown into one tower of the WTC. When he exclaimed that a second plane had just hit the other main tower I jumped from my chair, took the elevator down to the ground, ran to my car and drove across the street to a store that rhymes with TallMart where I bought a small color TV. I was tearing it out of its box as I ran back down the hall to my office. Everyone was still gathered around my radio (and really didn’t even know I had left), but cleared away from my conference table where I plopped the TV and turned it on. I chose ABC and Peter Jennings.

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9/11 — Uncertainty

2001
“Did you guys hear this on the radio?” my friend Paul says, walking into the office to start a new day at work. “They’re saying some guy flew a plane into one of the World Trade Center towers.”

The rest of the office buzzes while I imagine some nut-job daredevil with a Cessna in a stunt gone wrong.

A few minutes later, another employees shows up for the day. He lives nearby, saw the news that morning and has now brought his television set up to the office; sets it up in the break room.

I try to do some work. There is, after all, work to be done, and I hate to break my routine. I’m online with my friend Sean, who’s at his workplace in a city 1600 miles away, and we’re instant-messaging back and forth as soon as we hear anything new on either end. Keeping each other posted.

There’s a muffled, startled shout from the break room and I rush in to find my coworkers clustered around the television, watching a replay of the second plane making impact.

Then it starts to set in. The magnitude. I become aware that I am watching history, and that life in this country will never be the same.

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I Still Struggle to Speak of 9/11

By Chaplain Mike

On Tuesday morning, September 11, 2001, I ate breakfast with the pastor with whom I used to work as an associate. We met at our favorite restaurant, the one we used to joke about as a “second office” for people in our church. When I was on the church staff, it was not uncommon for me to be there at least three mornings a week.

Skies were bright and blue in central Indiana that day, as I got in my car to drive the fifteen miles back to my office. Realizing that I had forgotten to give my friend something, I took a slight detour and drove by the church. The radio was on and I heard sketchy reports about an aviation incident in New York City. The announcer said witnesses reported that they thought a light plane had crashed into one of the World Trade Center towers.

Popping in and out of the church office to do my errand, I mentioned the strange report to the secretary and pastor, but didn’t think much about it. That changed as I got back in my car, drove south, and listened to further news bulletins about the unfolding events in Manhattan. By the time I reached my church, my associate had pulled the TV from the youth room into his office and was watching the horrific footage of the burning, collapsing towers. We spent the rest of the day in front of that TV, speechless.

We called a special prayer service in the sanctuary for that evening. Together, a few dozen of us watched President Bush’s address to the nation and then we prayed. As we were talking in the foyer later, one of my parishioners said, “Come here.” I followed him outside and he pointed to the heavens, the quiet, plane-less heavens, and said, “This may be the only time in our lives that we will see the skies empty like this.”

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9/11 — Reflections on Disappointing Reactions

Note from CM: Regular iMonk readers will recognize the voice of Eagle, one of the faithful members of our online discussion community. Eagle says he is an agnostic, and he has certainly been through the wringer when it comes to negative experiences with religious types, including the “fundagelicals.” We love having him here. He keeps us sharp by asking good questions, making us wince with his descriptions of how Christians have acted toward him in the past, and by just being himself — honest, funny, and plain-spoken. He is a friend.

Eagle wrote me the other day and described his experiences on 9/11. I asked if I could share them with the community and he graciously agreed. His is a perspective some of us in the church need to hear.

• • •

By Eagle

I want to make you aware of a neat and limited exhibit at the Smithsonian National Museum of American History that is worth your visit if you live in the area or will be visiting it in the next week. The exhibit is about September 11, showing some personal artifacts from the disaster in Pennsylvania, the Pentagon, and the World Trade Centers.

As a heads up, the exhibit is popular and the line was long today. I wanted this to be a morning event; instead it turned into a day-long event.  I waited about an hour and a half to get in. So if you want to see it, get there early. It’s open from 11:00 to 3:00 from now until September 11, 2011. The other part of the show dealt with how the news media covered the event and how historians are preserving it. It’s a good exhibit, albeit heavy.

The final part is an interactive where you are asked to record what you were doing on September 11, 2001 — How did you hear the news? What does September 11 mean to you? I sat there at a table and decided to write down the story an acquaintance who worked at the Pentagon told me about how he had the day off from the part of the building that was hit. I also wrote how my grandmother told me that September 11 was similar to Pearl Harbor for her. When my grandmother passed away in October 2009 at 100 she was almost like a history book. She remembered being a kid, 8 or 9 and people celebrating the end of World War I. I loved talking with her because of this….

I put down those memories of 9/11….

What I didn’t put down was my experience as an evangelical/fundamentalist on Tuesday, September 11, 2001, and seeing how some evangelicals responded to the event, in comparison to the Catholics and non-evangelicals that I knew. I elected not to put that down because in all honesty I wish I could just forget about some of it.

But here is the other part of how I remember September 11.

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How Did 9/11 Affect Christian Faith in the U.S.?

By Chaplain Mike

As the tenth anniversary of Sept. 11, 2001 approaches, I have been reading articles that discuss how this event has affected the church and people of faith in the U.S.

What do you think?

In general, do you think there have been any significant changes in perspective about the faith here in the U.S. since 9/11?

On a personal level, have you seen any lasting effects in your own spiritual life or in the lives of others you know?

Did your church incorporate any new approaches or ministries after 9/11 that have continued and have proven effective in helping people’s spiritual formation after the tragedy and the way it changed our world?

Here is what some others have been saying.

In terms of general religious trends, John Blake at CNN suggests that there are four observable attitude shifts toward religion in America after 9/11.

1. A chosen nation becomes a humbled one.
Americans, long triumphalist about our place in history and the world, discovered that their sense of specialness and invulnerability was shattered by 9/11. Rev. Thomas Long from Emory University says, “The challenge for every faith tradition is going to be helping people grieve the loss of an image of America that they once had,” he says, “and acquire a modern understanding of ourselves on the world’s stage.”

2. The re-emergence of “Christo-Americanism.”
Americans began to learn more about Islam after 9/11, and in many cases this led to a backlash against all Muslims and a renewed “Christo-Americanism,” which one scholar called, “a distorted form of Christianity that blends nationalism, conservative paranoia and Christian rhetoric.”

3. Interfaith becomes cool.
On the other hand, a new interest in interfaith communication and cooperation arose, especially among young people. Interfaith events have spread across the country. Mosques and temples have held joint worship services. Many college campuses an interfaith dialogue. The Obama White House launched a college interfaith program. “A generation of students is saying that they want to be interfaith leaders, just like previous generations said they wanted to be human rights activists or environmentalists.” (Eboo Patel, Interfaith Youth Core)

4. Atheists come out of the closet.
Voices that speak against religion became louder and more strident after 9/11. Both the terrorist attacks and the “God is on our side” rhetoric of response to which atheists objected “really showed atheists why religion should not be in power. Religion is dangerous, even our own religion,” explains David Silverman, President of American Atheists.

• “Four Ways 9/11 Changed America’s Attitude toward Religion”

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September 12, 2011

NOTE from CM: I was scheduled to fly to Kyrgyzstan in central Asia a week after September 11, 2001, to visit our friends and missionaries, Andy and Damaris Zehner. Because of flight restrictions imposed after the attacks, I had to wait until mid-October. When I arrived and traveled around Naryn and nearby villages with them, a common topic of conversation was what had happened in New York City and the U.S. invasion of nearby Afghanistan on Oct. 7. I clearly remember several encounters during which they had to explain (and defend) the U.S. position, especially the Afghan war, as both Americans and Christians.

When I decided to focus on remembering 9/11 this week, the Zehners were the first people who came to my mind. Today, Damaris offers a unique view from abroad on those sad and chaotic days.

• • •

September 12, 2011

When we lived in Kyrgyzstan, a more or less Muslim country in Central Asia, email was tricky. It could take a long time to get an internet connection, so we wouldn’t check email or news more than once a day. Even being able to check it once a day was a treat. When we first moved there in 1998, we were without a connection for several months.

I was up early on the morning of September 12 and successfully opened email. There was a strange letter from my mother in the D.C. area, lamenting the “terrible news” and mentioning that my sister, who had been at meetings at the Pentagon, was staying with her until she was able to fly home. I gave a sigh of impatience, because my mother often reacted excessively to the littlest thing. But I checked the on-line newspaper just in case.

For once my mother was right. What horrifying pictures. At that time no one knew how many people might be dead or injured or even what was going on or why.

Later that day I went to the little store near our house, as I did most days. The storekeeper, my neighbor, helped me quietly but said nothing about the attack. While she was getting my things, a man came in and saw me. “Are you American?” he gasped.

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Beautiful Music at Ground Zero

Trinity Church, 9/11 Memorial 2007, Photo by Barry Yanowitz

By Chaplain Mike

At historic Trinity Church in Manhattan, daily prayers for peace have been offered since the days following 9/11. This week, to mark the tenth anniversary, they will turn to the music of J.S. Bach to provide comfort for those commemorating the sad events of that day. The New York Times story reporting the concerts calls Bach, “the great comforter,” and as we will see below, the music chosen for these services is both fitting and deeply moving.

The church asked singing groups from cities and states directly affected by the attacks to participate in the week’s events. After performing at eucharistic services on Sunday, the Trinity Choir conducted by Julian Wachner, Trinity’s music director, will sing two alternating programs of Bach cantatas (BWV 131 and 106) and motets at 1 p.m. Monday through Thursday at St. Paul’s Chapel.

Various groups will sing music from other composers in programs in the evening services and during a marathon of music on Friday, September 9, including the Brahms and Fauré Requiems.

The Trinity Choir will once again sing Bach cantatas on Sept. 10 and 12 (BWV 34, 79, and 192, “Now Thank We All Our God”) and will perform at special remembrance services on Sunday, Sept. 11.

You can read a full program of the events at Trinity Church for this special week HERE.

Ten years ago, the final act of many 9/11 victims was one of love. Facing the unthinkable, their parting gesture was to reach out to their families, friends and colleagues. Ten years later, let us ‘Remember to Love’ those who are gone, those who remain and those to come. Let us further remember and honor those who perished by generating a post-anniversary community committed to reconciliation and peace.

• The Rev. Dr. James H. Cooper, XVII Rector of Trinity Wall Street

Through these services, and a variety of other ministries for the first responders and others affected by 9/11, Trinity Church is showing the way of a truly Christ-like ministry for those touched by public tragedy.

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A Hymn for Ordinary Time (11): A Song of Peace

By Chaplain Mike

As we look forward to our week of remembering 9/11, I offer the following hymn of peace for your meditation today.

This words of the first two stanzas to this hymn, which is sung to the melody of Finlandia, were written by Lloyd Stone in the years between World War I and World War II. The final stanzas were composed by Methodist theologian Georgia Harkness.

May this song of peace fill our hearts and enliven our peacemaking efforts.

“…and they shall beat their swords into plowshares,
and their spears into pruning hooks;
nation shall not lift up sword against nation,
neither shall they learn war anymore;
but they shall sit every man under his vine and under his fig tree,
and no one shall make them afraid,
for the mouth of the Lord of hosts has spoken.” (Micah 4:3-4, ESV)

• • •

This Is My Song (A Song of Peace)

This is my song, Oh God of all the nations,
A song of peace for lands afar and mine.
This is my home, the country where my heart is;
Here are my hopes, my dreams, my sacred shrine.
But other hearts in other lands are beating,
With hopes and dreams as true and high as mine.

My country’s skies are bluer than the ocean,
And sunlight beams on cloverleaf and pine.
But other lands have sunlight too and clover,
And skies are everywhere as blue as mine.
Oh hear my song, oh God of all the nations,
A song of peace for their land and for mine.

May truth and freedom come to every nation;
may peace abound where strife has raged so long;
that each may seek to love and build together,
a world united, righting every wrong;
a world united in its love for freedom,
proclaiming peace together in one song.

This is my prayer, O Lord of all earth’s kingdoms,
thy kingdom come, on earth, thy will be done;
let Christ be lifted up ’til all shall serve him,
and hearts united, learn to live as one:
O hear my prayer, thou God of all the nations,
myself I give thee — let thy will be done.

Open Mic: No Prayers at the 9/11 Memorial Observance

REUTERS: Mike Segar

By Chaplain Mike

Have you read reports about the controversy concerning the ceremony of remembrance at the Sept. 11 Memorial dedication next week? No Christian clergy or leaders of other faiths will participate and no formal prayers will be offered. Some in the church and in our culture think that is wrong. Others agree with the decision.

During this week to come we will feature several posts reflecting on 9/11, and we will kick that off by inviting you to discuss this matter.

To prime the pump, here are some quotes expressing various opinions on the “clergy ban”:

  • “Your plan to exclude pastors and prayer from the Ground Zero commemoration is not only offensive to the families of victims, but strangely overlooks the role that faith played in bringing healing to countless lives,” (Petition from Family Research Council, signed by 55,000+. Source: Christian Post)
  • “This is a shameful example of anti-religious bigotry,” said Richard Land, president of the Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission. “This once again betrays the secular bias against religion in certain liberal elements of our society whose epicenter is New York City.” (source: Christian Examiner)
  • “The way I and many other faithful Christians see it is as an act of mercy—sparing us the spectacle of bundling all religions together as if they are worshipping one god or as if all these gods are equal.” (Michael Youssef, Church of the Apostles, Atlanta. Source: Michael Youssef.com)

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Saturday Ramblings 9.3.11

Welcome to the kickoff edition of Saturday Ramblings. My Tulsa Golden Hurricane take on my Oklahoma Sooners tonight. Wait a minute. Who am I going to root for? They are both “my teams.” Oh what a quandary. What a dilemma. I have my masters from OU. I have, um, nothing, from TU, but they have been my favorite college football team for a long time. So I will cheer for TU. Mostly I will pulling for them not to get hurt as the Sooners beat them like a rented mule. With that behind us, are you ready to ramble?

We remember the incident that occurred on Easter Sunday at Elevation Church in North Carolina when a boy with cerebral palsy was removed from the sanctuary because he was being “disruptive.” Ruth Moon of Christianity Today asked a variety of pastors and authors what they think merits a disruption. Some very interesting comments here.

Last month I was in Ft. Jackson, South Carolina to see my son graduate from Army boot camp. Unfortunately I did not see these chaplains training for combat. They need our prayers. Each of them, even the Muslims.

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