SEPTEMBER 11

“SEPTEMBER 11”

            Almost all adults remember where we were on this day 16 years ago when we heard the news that the World Trade Center had been attacked by airplanes.  I was in the post office in Decatur getting the mail about 8:45 AM, when one of the postal workers asked me if I thought that the second plane that hit the buildings was an accident too.  At that time, I was not aware that the first plane had hit the buildings, but I said in reply – “no, it sounds like neither one of the planes was an accident.”  I hurried home to watch the TV, and I alerted Caroline who had already gone to work at the church.  I saw the twin towers fall, and I knew then that we were in a new era. 

            We had just taken our daughter Susan up to Macalester College in St. Paul for her first year, and we were worried about her.  Fortunately, one of our former interns, Alika Galloway, was a pastor in Minneapolis, and we were very relieved when she called us and said:  “I don’t know what’s going on, but if this goes any further, don’t worry about Susan – we’ll get her and bring her to our house!”  We’re still grateful to Alika for that great ministry to us.  Our hearts still go out to the families of the 3,000 people killed in the twin towers, the airplanes, and the Pentagon.  I also give thanks for the First Responders who ran towards the buildings to save lives rather than running away from the buildings to save their own.

            The meaning of September 11 is still reverberating through our culture, and there are many levels.   All of us have our interpretations, and these are a few brief ones of mine.  First, the world suddenly shrunk for Americans.  The nuclear age had made us aware that the oceans protecting our shores were not really relevant any more. Yet the idea that 21 people, trained by us to fly our airplanes, could kill over 3,000 people and cause such physical and psychic damage was stunning.   Our idea of ourselves as the one Superpower in the world was shaken to its core.  Our twin gods of materialism and technology were used and manipulated and attacked.  Few people remember that Puerto Rican nationalists shot up Congress in 1954, wounding five congressmen, but all of us will remember September 11, because it told us that we were now living in a smaller, global world.

            Second, our Empire mentality led Dick Chaney, Donald Rumsfeld, and George Bush into an idiotic and disastrous invasion of Iraq and Afghanistan, wars that now seem to have no end.  We invaded these countries out of hubris and a desire for revenge because our vulnerability had been revealed to us.  This process began in our losing the Vietnam War, and it continues through the election of Donald Trump.  It will be interesting to engage Ken Burns’ PBS series on the Vietnam War this month, as we consider this process again.   Sweet Honey in the Rock put it this way in the song “Battle for My Life:”  “Your hunger for war ain’t nothing new, Cowboy.”  I remember Jonathon Alter’s column in Newsweek “Blame America At Your Peril,” in the October 15, 2001 issue, as he closed it with these prime facie American imperial words: “”Al Qaeda was planning its attack at exactly the time the United States was offering a Mideast peace deal favorable to the Palestinians.  Nothing from us would have satisfied the fanatics, and nothing ever will.  Peace won’t be with you, brother.  It’s kill or be killed.”  September 11 should have told us that it’s “a just peace” or endless violence and war – we have yet to hear that lesson.  I don’t know that we ever can.

            Finally, the deep enmity for Islam is rooted in September 11.  In our history as Christians, we have considered Judaism as our primary enemy.  In modern times we have seen Islam as a small gnat in the way of our access to oil, but September 11 changed that.   It is no surprise that we did not attack the nation where most of the September 11 combatants came from – Saudi Arabia – because they are our primary oil ally in the region.  As the influence of religion, especially Christianity, wanes in America, some of us look longingly at Muslims who seem to try to actually practice their faith in a thoroughly consumer culture such as ours.  

            There are many other lessons from September 11, but these stick with me:  global life, the futility of violence and war, and the strengthening enmity for Islam.  As we reflect back on this history that continues to course through our individual and collective veins, let us remember these lessons and especially the words of Martin Luther King, Jr.:  “We must learn to live together to live as brothers (and sisters} or perish together as fools.”