Remembering a bad day

To the King of the ages, immortal, invisible, the only God, be honor and glory forever and ever. Amen. –1 Timothy 1:17 (ESV)

Where were you on September 11, 2001? It’s one of those events that gets tattooed on your brain. I was on the third floor of the Walmart ISD building in Bentonville, Arkansas. Pretty normal morning, discussing project deliverables with teammates, planning the day, re-assessing work priorities based on our latest customer inputs. There were televisions mounted on the wall in the break room around the corner. Feeds from various cable news networks played 24x7.

Around 8:00 AM, word began to spread that a terrible accident had occurred in New York – a passenger plane had crashed into one of the towers of the World Trade Center. Several of us went to the break room to get the latest updates, when it became obvious the crash had not been an accident. As we watched, another plane hit the second tower. The Pentagon was soon under attack as well.

The room filled up quickly, as work ceased and people stood and gazed at the screen in shock. Feelings of sadness, concern, worry, fear, and anger rose. In an instant, our plans for the day had become irrelevant. A fourth plane crashed in a field in Pennsylvania, as passengers who had begun hearing of the events in New York and Washington realized their flight was doomed and staged an insurrection against the terrorists, aborting their mission. In the span of an hour and a half, our world changed.

Many people left the office, and our managers told us we should take as much time as we needed to process the events of the day. I called my wife at home. She had dropped our two younger kids off at school and picked up early reports over the car radio on the way home. By the time we spoke, she had the TV on and was watching the same updates I was. I wrapped up a couple of things that I had already begun at work, then drove home in a fog. By that time, the workplace was like a ghost town. It was surreal.

How do you explain an event like that to your children? We had four between the ages of five and thirteen – old enough to know what was going on, but not old enough to fully comprehend the impact, much less why it had happened. Truth be told, I was struggling with that myself. My oldest had a soccer game scheduled for that night. I was his coach. The President was saying we should behave as normally as possible; to do otherwise would give the terrorists exactly what they wanted.

After speaking to the other coach, we decided to play the game. That decision haunts me to this day. Distracted and out of sorts, I ended up getting ejected from the game for questioning a referee’s call. As I recall, my inquiry may have included referring to him as “an arrogant ass”. I don’t remember the outcome of the contest. My evening ended with me finishing the game from the parking lot and wondering what tomorrow would bring.

On the twentieth anniversary of these events, I am reminded of some things, lessons gleaned from that day. There are bad guys in the world. We like to think we can insulate ourselves from evil, but the truth is, there’s an awful lot out there we cannot control. That doesn’t mean we should be fearful – we need to be courageous enough to call it what it is and oppose it when and where we can.

Earthly things, even those that seem strong and solid and constant, are not forever. We’re only here for a little while. As much as we love, appreciate, and admire the nobility of the best mankind has built, there is only One King and one Kingdom that is eternal, only One who is worthy of our trust. So take time to remember – mourn the losses and honor the dead. But don’t forget that which can never be taken away….

“I am the Alpha and the Omega,” says the Lord God, “Who is, and Who was, and Who is to come, the Almighty.” –Revelation 1:8 (NIV)