Here we are, seven years from 9/11. In our Biblically-influenced culture, “seven years” is not just any old time period but one with special resonance. We may recall the seven fat years that preceded September 11, 2001, or rue the seven leaner-and-leaner ones that have followed. Or not. But this morning I bet that most of our minds will stop out of the flow of time entirely, eddying on that moment when we realized that something overwhelming, literally unthinkable, was going on right before our eyes.
On this thread, let’s share “how I learned the world had gone crazier than I could imagine.” We can get back to our other stuff soon, but for now let’s just share our memories of 9/11 and leave off the rest. Okay? Here’s mine:
I watched a lot of CNBC in those days, and that morning as I was finishing my tea and Mark Haines was interviewing some bond guy, David Faber broke in with a news-chopper’s live-shot of a big smoking hole in one of the World Trade Center towers. A bombing? but up that high? so . . . a small-plane hit? (A few mornings before, they’d cut to a live shot of some doof trying to parasail onto Miss Liberty’s torch. “A stunt gone bad?” I wondered.)
I called my best friend (not a morning person): “Marilyn, turn on the TV! You won’t believe what’s happening in New York: the World Trade Center’s on fire! I don’t know. A bomb, a plane . . .”
CNBC stayed on the towers, bond guy forgotten, as Haines and others relayed reports and the building poured smoke. I don’t think they showed any jumpers, but I’m not sure. They stopped the commercials. I switched around channels, but CNBC seemed to be doing as good a job as any, so mostly I just settled there, hoping its regular guests were safe (as it turned out, Marty Meehan and David Alger were already dead and cremated, or about to be).
I was thinking what fine work Mark Haines was doing, staying calmly on top of this horrible thing, when, an instant before they cut to a new angle, a big plane flashed in from the right — “Jesus, what’s that?!” A second or two later, as a new shot caught a tremendous fireball on the intact tower, Haines said, “Well, that’s it — it’s a terrorist attack.” So calm, so matter-of-fact. My only coherent thought was “Wow, he’s good. Better than I knew.”
Before long, as I struggled with visions of the insides of the towers, they cut to Jim Miklaszewski at the Pentagon. He’d just felt some impact shake the building and saw people running away. “My God, it’s war — WHO IS IT?” I thought.
Then one tower went down, and it was obvious the other could and would follow, which it soon did. These subsidings and billowings of smoke and debris nearly broke my mind, and certainly my heart. I knew I wasn’t hallucinating the morning, but how could it be? Mark Haines still spoke with more control than seemed likely, but reporting from the street, Ashleigh Banfield nearly lost her mind on live TV.
At first I’d kind of wished for company to talk to, but as it went on, I was glad to be alone, not required to raise language for this. I marveled at my quiet living room with the bright Florida morning pouring through its skylights and windows while inferno roared in New York and Washington, and I took what psychic shelter there was in the birdsong. It wasn’t enough.
No matter what I’d have given to talk to her, I kept feeling grateful that my mom hadn’t lived to see this morning. The phone rang a time or two, but nobody else wanted to talk much yet either — we saw the world we’d known ending, and all we were really equipped to do with that was look.
I was in my office. I got a call from a friend who was a former Texan turned New Yorker turned Mississippian. He was frantic. “An airplane has hit the World Trade Center!” He sounded like he couldn’t breathe–I could hear him gasping as he said, “I have friends in that building! It’s burning”. He was almost hysterical. There was no TV in my office; I didn’t have a clue but he sat there narratating what he was seeing. A vivid picture flashed in my mind of the World Trade Center, the beauty of it, the coolness of it in the summertime, dining above the city in it on a sparkly New York night. I could not picture what my friend was describing. I thought perhaps I was listening to some sort of psychic break, my mind searched for reasons my friend would be so upset over something that couldn’t possibly be true. “WHO told you such a thing?” was my first question. “I’m watching it live on the Today show!”. He screamed. Awful. “I have to call you back, I need to listen to this!”. He exclaimed.
Still dubious, I walked out of my office and asked if anyone had a radio. One of the paralegals offered up a small boom box. We plugged it in, found a news station, just in time to hear a description of the first plane followed almost immediately by the instaneous report of a second plane.
“We are at war,” I said. No phone rang, except for the sound of the radio reports, the rest of the world seemed suspended in the bright blue beauty of that crisp September day. I didn’t realize it was the death of a way of life, that we had all been instantaneously made less free.
I had been home from work for about an hour,watching the Today show, Katie and Matt always helped put me to sleep. I watched the days events unfold in horror knowing that sleep would be impossible. I remember Katie vainly trying to finish the segment she was doing,but only for a few seconds, as all focus shifted to the twin towers. I felt alone, I called my wife ,my siblings, my children. I stepped out on my back deck and cursed,shouted and cried. The dogs, Woody and Abby, knew something was very wrong and tried to console me as only dogs can. I held them close and told them to look around because nothing would ever be the same. We took in the glorious bright day; the sky, trees, birds,gardens,everything, and tried to permanently etch them in my memory; because I knew nothing would ever be the same again. The beauty and the horrors of that day, 7 years later, are still vivid in my mind. And yes everything did change.
I don’t normally turn on television in the mornings, preferring to ease into the day relishing my own early morning reflections. So, I was working my way through traffic on my way to work with the radio tuned to NPR when I heard "Oh, my God, there’s another plane and it’s heading for the 2nd tower-this is no accident, these are terrorists!" Without a visual image, it took me a few seconds to comprehend that this was not the reporting of someone’s recollection of a horrid event. I went numb. Gripping the steering wheel with white-knuckle intensity, I forced myself to focus on the traffic around me until I could pull into a parking space at work and try to grasp the realities of this nightmare. I spent the rest of the day sleepwalking; waiting for someone to wake me from the worst dream I ever had and grieving for a certain loss of innocence. The world as we knew it was changed forever that horrible day. And out of this horrific event has evolved the best and the worst of our humanness. Today is indeed a special day of remembrance for those who put their own lives at risk or died trying to save others, of those who innocently lost their lives to this insane act of violence, and to all of us who were left behind in the rubble of 9/11.
One of my enduring memories of 9/11 was listening to the ABC news feed being played over PRM and hearing Peter Jennings speculate that the first plane had hit the WTC because the air traffic control system had never recovered from Ronald Reagan’s firing of the striking PATCO members. He kept on this crap until the second plane hit. I will always despise the memory of that low-life Canadian.
Observer 4-*gasp*, *heavy sigh*- I am speechless.
On 9/12/01 more than 4,000 of America’s religious leaders of all faiths had signed the following statement that was printed as an ad in The New York Times:
Deny Them Their Victory: A Religious Response to Terrorism
We, American religious leaders, share the broken hearts of our fellow citizens. The worst terrorist attack in history that assaulted New York City, Washington, D.C., and Pennsylvania has been felt in every American community. Each life lost was of unique and sacred value in the eyes of God, and the connections Americans feel to those lives run very deep. In the face of such a cruel catastrophe, it is a time to look to God and to each other for the strength we need and the response we will make. We must dig deep to the roots of our faith for sustenance, solace and wisdom.
First, we must find a word of consolation for the untold pain and suffering of our people. Our congregations will offer their practical and pastoral resources to bind up the wounds of the nation. We can become safe places to weep and secure places to begin rebuilding our shattered lives and communities. Our houses of worship should become public arenas for common prayer, community discussion, eventual healing, and forgiveness.
Second, we offer a word of sober restraint as our nation discerns what its response will be. We share the deep anger toward those who so callously and massively destroy innocent lives, no matter what the grievances or injustices invoked. In the name of God, we too demand that those responsible for these utterly evil acts be found and brought to justice. Those culpable must not escape accountability. But we must not, out of anger and vengeance, indiscriminately retaliate in ways that bring on even more loss of innocent life. We pray that President Bush and members of Congress will seek the wisdom of God as they decide upon the appropriate response.
Third, we face deep and profound questions of what this attack on America will do to us as a nation. The terrorists have offered us a stark view of the world they would create, where the remedy to every human grievance and injustice is a resort to the random and cowardly violence of revenge — even against the most innocent. Having taken thousands of our lives, attacked our national symbols, forced our political leaders to flee their chambers of governance, disrupted our work and families, and struck fear into the hearts of our children, the terrorists must feel victorious.
But we can deny them their victory by refusing to submit to a world created in their image. Terrorism inflicts not only death and destruction but also emotional oppression to further its aims. We must not allow this terror to drive us away from being the people God has called us to be. We assert the vision of community, tolerance, compassion, justice, and the sacredness of human life, which lies at the heart of all our religious traditions. America must be a safe place for all our citizens in all their diversity. It is especially important that our citizens who share national origins, ethnicity, or religion with whoever attacked us are, themselves, protected among us.
Our American illusion of invulnerability has been shattered. From now on, we will look at the world in a different way, and this attack on our life as a nation will become a test of our national character. Let us make the right choices in this crisis — to pray, act, and unite against the bitter fruits of division, hatred and violence. Let us rededicate ourselves to global peace, human dignity, and the eradication of the injustice that breeds rage and vengeance.
As we gather in our houses of worship, let us begin a process of seeking the healing and grace of God.