Today’s installment of our Ride to Church feature that we usually run on Sundays is a Walk to the World Trade Center Memorial site, which my family visited in June of this year while spending a week in New York City. As I’m sure is the case with people the world over, my thoughts this morning have been turned to that event. It’s one of those events, like JFK’s assassination or when Neil Armstrong set foot on the moon, that I’ll never forget. We were living in our first house in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. Brent was teaching at LSU. I was home with the girls, who were 18 months and 3 1/2. Kennedy went to a pre-school in the mornings and Marin stayed home with me on Tuesday and Thursday mornings when I wasn’t teaching (so I could assuage my Mormon-mother guilt). We were getting ready in the morning and I had flipped the TV channel to the Today show, where I first saw the footage. I tried to call Brent, but he was in class. I remember crying a bit, but it was all very confusing and I didn’t know what was happening. I walked Kennedy to school, where all the moms and teachers there were similarly confused. I left her there and went home and sat in front of the TV with Marin and just watched, horrified.
This summer, I wanted the kids to see the World Trade Center site in NYC. Kennedy had seen part of it on a school trip the year before, but none of the memorial was done, so she wanted to go back. Marin and Stuart thought it was all just too sad and didn’t want to go, but we made them. They were glad to have seen it, in a way. It was surreal to be there and to take it all in. To imagine all the sadness and misery that took place on that day and in the days and years since.
So here are a few of our family’s pictures. We spent the morning walking over the Brooklyn bridge and then had Grimaldi’s pizza before heading back over to the World Trade Center site in the afternoon. It was a beautiful day in the city.
![img_1699](https://dovesandserpents.org/wp-content/gallery/9-11-memorial/img_1699.jpg "The \\"survivor tree\\" was replanted on the site in 2010. Bloomberg said it was \\"a testament to our ability to endure and a symbol of our unshakeable belief in a brighter future.\\"")
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Heather, You have a lovely family. My wife and I also visited when in NY.
But no, people the world over didn’t even notice that it was sept 11 as related to the world trade centre.
Some comments from an outsider. At the same time as 9/11 there was a cyclone in Asia where the death toll started as 20,000 and ended up being closer to 50,000. The trade centre death toll started at 5000 and was revised down to 3000. Still find that interesting and also the coverage, and memories show that American lives are more valuable than others.
This has also caused the war, which was not justified, and which Bush “persuaded” various allies including UK, New Zealand and Australia to join. Many military deaths and over 200,000 civilian casualties.
It has also lead to the extreme security measures we now live with. Not only at airports but making it difficult to for example ship a seat belt which has a pretensioner with 1 gram of explosive in it. Mainly at the behest of America, life is now more difficult for many people because of the war on terrorism resultant from the world trade centre attack.
Wouldn’t it have been wonderful if Bush was a christian and had thought/said, we obviously have upset someone, we could see how we can repair that rift, or we can start a war which will cost $x. Which will be the christian thing to do, or even which will be the most likely to produce a positive lasting effect for the world? What a shame the greatest christian country in the world couldn’t extend its christianity to its response. No war on terrorism or Afganistan.
Geoff, you are right–I didn’t mean to overemphasize the global significance of the day.
I completely agree that it has led to many many military and civilian deaths, which I deplore. I wish desperately that we would stop all the war-mongering. We have sown so many seeds of hatred over the last 10 years, it is terrible. I very much dislike all the emphasis on war/violence that I see in the scriptures and in Christian hymns, etc.
I did say, in the post, “all the sadness and misery that took place on that day and in the days and years since,” which was my way of including all the death and destruction that has occurred as a result of the 9/11 terrorism acts, but without rubbing people’s noses in it.
Heather,
I also have a problem with the number of hymns that compare the Church to a military operation with enemies and violence, and I have trouble with 1. the concept of the noble soldier, and 2 where in Christs teachings is the kill the enemy concept?
I was a bit concerned, after I sent the original response that I may be offensive to American culture. Last time we were in America we also went to a regional youth dance festival in California and were amazed that half the program was taken up with honouring the heroes and parading the flags and a chior singing patriotic songs. Would not happen at a church event in Australia.
Not offensive–to me, anyway! I am very uncomfortable with the ongoing violence in Iraq/Afghanistan and wish desperately that we would get out. But I wanted to share those pictures yesterday and didn’t want to poke a stick in it, so to speak. So I tried to be measured. ;)
And yes to the mixing of patriotism and religion and politics in the US. It’s crazy! And right now, with Romney as the GOP nominee for president, it feels even worse.
Geoff,
Cyclones are bad. People dying is bad. People dying because of the deliberate actions of others? That’s even worse. It should not offend you that news of people indiscriminately killing thousands of other people because they are American is more shocking and yes, more newsworthy, to Americans than even tens of thousands of people dying in a natural disaster.
Also, although I personally think the war in Iraq was wrong, I 100% support the war in Afghanistan. Deliberately commit an act of war against the US, and we’re supposed to say, “Oh, darn it. Well, I guess you are right for feeling the way you do. Let’s send you some foreign aid”? You have got to be kidding me. The Taliban are among the worst oppressors of women and religious minorities in the world, and defense of their “point of view” sort of sounds hollow. Their point of view is evil.
Many of these people, or at least the regimes, hate us because of our support of women’s rights, gay rights, freedom of religion and (right now especially) freedom of speech. They oppress and abuse women, children, non-Muslims, kite-flyers, people who dance, and hundreds of other categories of people. I’m comfortable with the United States standing up to countries, regimes, and people who attack us. Furthermore, I’m confused at the same people who allegedly despise Republicans for “taking away the choices of women” and being “homophobes” for cozying up to people like the Taliban and other Islamic regimes. It’s hypocritical and frankly, despicable.
Obviously, you’ve touched a nerve. However, I stand by my belief that, Christian or not, the US has a right to defend itself.