Eighteen years ago the world was forever changed. It was a day that our modern generations will remember forever. You’ll know where you were when you first heard the news. You’ll remember the way our nation become truly one nation as intended. You’ll feel the overwhelming sense of patriotism course through your veins. You’ll pause and thank a service man or woman, even if only quietly in your head. Today was a day when good & evil collided. While it looked at first like evil won, we still woke up the next morning.
What happens when good and evil come face to face?
It’s a challenging thing to see evil appear to get the upper hand. It’s hard to see the raw forces of pure, unadulterated terror wreak havoc on those they seek to harm. Evil had its plan and they acted it out nearly flawlessly. We were caught off guard. We were unassuming of all things evil. We let our guard down. We became one nation divided by factions, political ideals, lifestyle choices, even religious preferences. And when a house, or in this case nation, is divided it can easily be conquered. And that’s just what happened. The nation crumbled. For a split second the United States of America was defeated. As innocent men and women lost their lives as the buildings dropped to the ground in piles of smoking rubble, as planes came screaming into the sides of the World Trade Center buildings – we all froze in horror and fear.
There is something evil didn’t count on. They didn’t count on courage. Evil didn’t account for the hundreds of men and women who would put their own safety aside and run, not away from danger but right into it. Terror never factors in the strength of the faithful. From the NYPD to the countless military forces that were scrambled in an instant, our fear and frozen nature soon was turned to action. It’s unfortunate that it took evil to win the battle for this nation to come together to fight the war.
But here we are eighteen years later to the day and unfortunately we’re no better off than we were on September 10th. We’re just as divided. We’re just as faction. We’re just as selfish and egotistical as individuals as we ever have been. Granted today we’ll have many self-proclaimed patriots come out of the woodwork. They’ll say they remember but tomorrow they’ll go right back to sitting in their camps hurling insults at one another and performing their own acts of terror as they try to bring others down.
If you truly want to remember 9.11.01, then let love conquer hate. Let light beat darkness. Let good conquer evil. Don’t let our differences divide us. Let them challenge us to look past what separates and cling to what unites. You and I may never see eye to eye on things like religion, politics and our individual rights, but that doesn’t mean we have to be enemies hurling insults at one another like the terrorists hurled planes into buildings.
America, get it together. We are one nation under God. It’s time we start acting like it!
Amen and amen