Eight years ago, September 11 was just another Tuesday. It was a normal fall day.
I was working downtown in a 46-story building when the planes went into the towers. I remember watching a monitor in the elevator that mentioned a plane had flown into one of the towers of the World Trade Center and thinking, “oh what a terrible mistake!” I figured it was a small plane, perhaps a hobby pilot who lost his way among the landscape of the New York skyline.
Then the second plane.
Someone had a television (thanks Lynn J-B!) and we watched. The terror on the faces of New Yorkers, fleeing from the burning buildings, the sight and sound of those who jumped.
Horror in Washington.
A third plane down in a Pennsylvania field.
Every major American city thought they were next. Houston? Why, it’s the center of much of the nation’s energy trading and the petroleum industry. L.A.? The source of the all of the Hollywood debauchery. On and on swirled the rumors. Can you imagine an event like that in the era of Twitter and Facebook?
How many dead?
Who did this?
What is next?
And then, why?
Why?
The last question was always the easiest one to answer, even if the answer didn’t make sense.
Rage mixed with patriotism was the rule of the day for many months.
Non-christians asked Christians, “Where is your God? How could he allow this?”
Christians nodded knowingly, believing this was the beginning of the end.
Muslims were unfairly punished for just simply being. Being an adherent to that faith in those times, while often surrounded by angry, confused, belligerent Americans…those were difficult times. Those men who commandeered those planes are no more typical of most Muslims than are the far-right wingers in Christianity. (And that’s something for which to give thanks!)
The war started on September 11 continues to wage on, even though I don’t think many of us are sure what we’re fighting for, if our cause is just, or if there’s any chance of victory for us or our allies. May the lives lost on that cool September morning, and every day since, never be in vain.