I had neither time nor words to write a 9/11 entry yesterday. This morning, however, I imagined that perhaps I had blogged something in previous years concerning the tragedy that I might share, but alas, after a quick search, I found nothing worth publishing.
Not wanting to disappoint my dedicated readership here, I pulled out my journal from five years ago and now offer what I wrote back then (albeit, on the 13th—two whole days after the event—as I was too shaken up to do otherwise). So, for what it's worth:
“‘Confuse the wicked, O Lord, confound their speech, for I see violence and strife in the city.' Psalm 55:9
It has taken me two whole days before I could even begin processing with any kind of logic the events of Tuesday's terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. For two days I have been numb and dumbfounded, craving the latest information and yet not knowing how to deal with it when I got it.
The hardest part for me in all this was the wrestling match required to somehow view this Christianly, with God aware and involved despite the awfulness of everything. I remember thinking on Tuesday that this was too big and too much for God to have handled, that God was as surprised as the rest of us when those planes crashed into their targets.”
It all seemed so out of control—the beginning of the end as we were unsure what would be next and were there more planes still to come down? The evil of all of this was (and still is to some degree) beyond imagination and, I remember thinking, the victor over a God—my God—who seemed so silent and shocked as the rest of us.
Even now, I'm not sure what exactly God is up to with regard to all of this. I suppose I can see more this morning how all these events do fit within God's plan and oversight—we are sinners who sin, sadly in some attrocious and murderous ways—but I wish he would hold some kind of press conference to let all of us know that. How, Lord, can you stay quiet after something like this? We need you to speak.
For certain, this is a watershed event in our country and culture, particularly for those twenty and under who have never experienced anything of this threatening nature before. My generation had the Challenger disaster and the tense end to the Cold War, all in the midst of a so-so economy; the generation previous was the Kennedy assassination, Vietnam, and the hostage crisis of the seventies.
This event will mark these kids not only because of its atrocity, but more so because it is the first true threat to an American they have only known as prosperous, safe, and alone. That idea of our country ended on Tuesday, or at least was reshaped significantly as we all found out that, among other things, we are quite vulnerable as well.
I don't know if time truly heals all wounds. That is to say, five years doesn't seem enough for this one yet.