Soul Mx - September 11 Message

This is part of a series shared ecumenically with members to whom I was assigned; the goal was to start conversation and deep thought, and many of these messages led to great conversations.

September 11 Message
Original Publication Date: 9 September 2021

Whether you remember vividly where you were, or if you weren’t born yet, the terrorist attacks of September 11th, 2001 have indelibly changed the world in which we live. Twenty years later it’s hard to envision a world without the changes that were started on that day. Many of those changes were negative, but by the resiliency of the American people, many of those changes have been positive.

I was in a public speaking class at Arizona State University in the Fall of 2001, I remember the theme of the speeches transitioned from water rights, public transit, and Statute 28-910 (affectionately called the “stupid motorist law”) to how to stay courageous in the face of fear, the goals of terrorism and how to overcome them, and the role of a citizen-soldier in society. The latter topic was delivered by an Army National Guard member who announced a few weeks later that he was being deployed and then stopped coming to class. 9/11 was definitely a seminal moment in my life when I realized the gravity of hatred, destruction, and suffering in the world.

At the end of that semester I visited my local Air Force recruiter and was placed in the Delayed Entry Program until February of 2003.

I remember hearing disparaging remarks made about some of the Airmen who had joined prior to September 11th being a “fair-weather force”, but I had the honor of serving with men and women who rose to the occasion and who expertly transitioned our strategies and tactics from Cold-War era to precision strike capabilities. It wasn’t the war they joined to fight, but it was their adept skills learned over decades that allowed us to fight two major operations (Enduring Freedom and Iraqi Freedom) simultaneously.

As the years have passed, water rights and public transit are still important, but now we add thriving in the face of fear, of living in the face of extremist hatred, and of serving our country and fellow human-beings both locally and globally.

Courage not being the absence of fear, but rather the assessment that something else is more important than fear. ~ Franklin Delano Roosevelt

In my faith tradition we place a premium on spiritual and emotional growth; John Newton—the man who wrote “Amazing Grace”—put it this way, “I am not what I ought to be, I am not what I want to be, I am not what I hope to be in another world; but still I am not what I once used to be.” Every event is an opportunity for growth or stagnation, an opportunity to grow in ways that we would not have grown had we not faced the challenge.

As we remember September 11th this year I want to encourage you to remember what is important in your life and to look for challenges you can rise to the occasion to make better. In this world we will continue to have challenges and heartbreaks and we will continue to have the opportunity to stand against extreme hatred. Sometimes these will be on a global scale, but more often than not they will be at a very local level where you can be the voice of reason and outpouring of hope amongst neighbors, family members, and coworkers.

Finally, we will process the 9/11 anniversary and the Afghanistan withdrawal in different ways; take a moment to tell someone something positive you’ve seen come out of the last twenty years, ask someone to hold you accountable to making your world a better place, and resolve to choose courage over apathy in the face of fear. If you need a confidential ear to discuss any of these, please know that my phone is always on.