Thoughts on 9/11:

It was Tuesday. I was in my office working. Kathy called and told me there was an explosion or something in New York. What I did next says a lot about me, and the condition of our world. I just confirmed my recollection by looking at a list of terrorist incidents that took place in the time just before 9/11. (also here) Bombs--suicide, car, and otherwise--attacks on trains, buildings and historic monuments, and man-made tragedies of all sorts had become common place. Less than a year before the USS Cole had a massive hole blown in its side. Distance and repetition had removed the terror from terrorism for me. The flow of blood in the newspaper and on the news, combined with troubles closer to home had made me more numb than I wish I were. I just kept working.


As I remember, Kathy called me again a few minutes later. Like many of you, she had been watching the horror unfolding. I heard an emotion in her voice that I had only heard at times of family deaths or other major troubles. I knew that this was beyond the wickedness that, for me had become the new normal. I came home and struggled to take in the magnitude of what had just happened.

It is a balancing act with which we all need to struggle. Somewhere, right now there is likely some atrocity that is being planned, carried out, or just inflicted on innocent people, yet this morning I need to take a helium tank back to a vendor, return some borrowed equipment we used at a church event last night, and do this STTA. My wife is going to the dentist. While I type she and I are discussing what we need to do this evening. Life goes on. I can't just quit. On the other hand the numbness to the pain of so many that too easily hardens my heart is troublesome.

I want to be more like my Lord, who when "He saw the multitudes . . . was moved with compassion for them, because they were weary and scattered, like sheep having no shepherd." (Matthew 9:36) I know my capacity for meaningful empathy is infinitely less than Christ's, but I pray . . .

Lord, help me to see and be impacted by the needs of others, and show me what I can do to make a difference. Amen



It's STTA.