Tomorrow marks the 14th anniversary of the destruction of the 9/11 attacks on World Trade Center Towers in New York, the Pentagon and the downing of Flight 93 over central Pennsylvania.
Ministry Matters has posted a reflection from Christian Hawley who was an Air Force officer on that fateful day and is now a priest on Remembering Well. In it he offers a series of short ruminations on the nature of the event and our responses to it, including some such as:
We are never innocent. The 9/11 terrorists did not attack the National Cathedral or the National Archives, our symbols of Christianity and democracy. They destroyed the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, the heart of the American military-industrial complex. Having been on the front lines of that complex, and having seen how American greed and arrogance exploited and demeaned other cultures, I can understand the terrorists’ frustrations and anger. I still condemn their actions.
Love anyway. It is better to live as a fool for Christ than as an executioner for justice. We rarely learn this lesson until it is too late, which is why we have more soldiers killing themselves than being killed in combat.
Never forget. Memory is a kind of immortality. It is no wonder the Process Theologians couch life after death in the memory of God. To remember, especially through story, is to sustain, to resurrect and to commune with those who have gone before us.
We are never beyond redemption. I have seen more grace in combat zones and prisons than I have in churches. People can change, and God always works through the unworthy.
Go read them all