There will be no shortage today of stories, remembrances or reflections of September 11, 2001. Still, I feel compelled to add my own. Forgive the length I anticipate this entry to be. If it’s too long, feel free to quit reading and go somewhere else. If it’s not, then read on.
It was just another day, another half-hour drive to work at a bank. The sky was a beautiful blue over the gentle rolling Kentucky hills, the sun still rising behind me, accentuating the mid-September weather drawing closer to autumn. I turned off the interstate, had been listening to NPR’s Morning Edition as I did every morning during the 25-mile trip. Just another mile to go before starting another day at the bank, opening accounts, counting deposits, dealing with customers.
Two days before, I had resigned as co-pastor of my church, accompanying the resignation of my grandfather (after almost 14 years as pastor). The church had decided to vote the following Sunday, deciding whether I would be the next pastor. If they selected me for that position, then I was only a few weeks away from resigning from my job at the bank. Several people had moved on in recent months, so the entire work environment was different. Yes, this week would certainly bring some changes.
I opened the drive-through lanes at exactly 8:00 AM, as was my responsibility every other week. There were night deposits to run, early customers getting some cash on their way to their own workplaces, paperwork to arrange before it needed to be sent to the main office. A Tuesday morning in mid-September at a bank in a tiny eastern Kentucky town was not exactly Grand Central Station, so after about fifteen minutes, things calmed down dramatically.
Just a few minutes before 9:00 AM, the lobby was opened, a few customers waiting to come in. Calvin, from the gas station down the road, and others were talking amongst themselves, waiting to conduct their own morning routine of making deposits and getting change. As I was mindlessly running the transactions, I heard someone say through the drive-up window’s speaker, “Did you hear about that plane hitting the World Trade Center?”
Immediately I left my customer and went back to my desk (I was running double-duty at that time: teller and customer service rep). Powering on my computer, I immediately went to msnbc.com and saw the picture of the first tower burning, the black gaping wound on the building a sinister smile, almost in anticipation of what was about to happen. It was 9:01.
I returned to my customer and finished the transaction, a few more people coming in, the regulars we expected every morning. About ten minutes later, our courier came in on his morning run. He said, “Did you hear about the World Trade Center?” I said that we had, and that I saw the picture of the tower. I commented about how I couldn’t understand how a plane could hit the building, and he said, “There was another plane.” Immediately I understood what he meant, at least on a subconscious level. The intellectual side of my mind began screaming, “You have to see! This can’t be happening!”
I returned to my computer, smacking the keyboard, that annoying screensaver disappearing and the web browser showing the same image I’d left: two towers, one hole, black smoke. I clicked refresh and … nothing. I clicked again … nothing. A low, guttural sound came out of my mouth as I tried again, only with the same results. I tried other web outlets: CNN, Fox, ABC, with no luck. I decided to try MSNBC one more time. This time a page loaded, the explosion in the second tower in plain view, and the words, “Due to high traffic volume, many features may not function properly.”
Of all the people who have a passion for history, a love of my country, and a fair talent with technology, wouldn’t you know it would be me who could get no information; we didn’t have the ability to get Internet information, we had no television. All we had was a radio that I’m certain had been used at one time to bring the modern sounds of disco to some leisure-suit clad youngster years before.
As I searched the dial (yes, the ‘dial’) I was dialing my home phone number. My wife answered, and I told her to turn on the television. Another line began to ring, so I answered it. It was my mother, asking me if I’d heard the news. So, here’s a bank employee, one hand on a radio Moses could have taken on the Exodus, my neck bent as I hold the telephone receiver against my shoulder, my left index finger punching buttons as I switched phone lines between my wife and mother.
I was done for the day, and fortunately my co-workers understood and pretty much left me alone. I wanted to go home, to see the images described to me via radio and phone. I knew that while Internet traffic would be off the charts, the bank traffic would be almost nothing (I believe, besides the few corporate customers we had during the day, we only had about six or seven regular customers all day). But I had to stay. I’ve always enjoyed listening to the radio, or hearing stories, my mind putting images with the words, making it come alive in my imagination.
Today, the images wouldn’t come.
The texture of the night deposit safe remains still in my mind, cold and rough, much like the feeling within my heart as I listened to the radio and my wife’s voice on the telephone. I kept trying to reconcile the descriptions with the only image I had seen of the towers, the moment of the second impact. Then my wife said, “One of the towers just collapsed.” I said, “You mean part of one of the towers fell off?” She replied, “No, one of the towers collapsed.”
Still, I would not, I could not imagine it. In my mind I could see the floors above the impact simply falling off the top of the structure, crashing onto the buildings and people below. I said again, “The top of the building, where the plane hit. That fell off?” Then my wife said the words that will remain etched in my mind for the rest of my life, words that made me finally understand.
“Chris, the building no longer exists.”
At that moment my mind opened, and I saw a building falling, the images of a sideways fall and a vertical collapse intermingling. I was numb, there were no words. I wanted to run across the street to the appliance store and get in front of a television. I told my wife I loved her, and I would call her back. My mother had long since hung up, calling her brother who was a basket case, having lived near New York several years before.
I had never been to New York, knew the World Trade Center as those two tall buildings in the pictures, my first real memory of anything concerned with the WTC coming after a sleep over at my best friend’s house. Early that February morning of 1993, images of soot-covered people being led to ambulances hidden by smoke and chaos, people shaken and wounded, such a contrast with the snowflakes peacefully and gently falling all around them. “Terrorism, huh? That’s wild. Let’s go listen to some music.” Not a great impact on a teen-ager.
Now, even though I had only been married a little less than a year, and no children planned anytime soon, I realized that our world had changed, that my children would never grow up in a world that I was already beginning to forget, a world of relative innocence and safety. If it could happen in New York, it could happen in the small towns of the heartland, in my own backyard, where a terrorist attack would truly inflict terror upon my broken nation.
I sat transfixed, looking at the small radio speaker as if it were a large-screen TV, when word came of an attack on the Pentagon, and reports of another plane inbound toward Washington. I imagined the horror surrounding the heart of the Armed Forces, and what I knew would follow: an airplane destroying our Capital or the White House. I am known for remaining pretty calm even in the midst of tragedy and chaos, but at this moment, I lost control.
The tears began, and they wouldn’t stop. What was happening? Has the Lord finally had enough and is He bringing this country to its knees? I knew we were at war, that it wouldn’t be over for years, maybe not even in my lifetime. Our arrogance had finally caught up with us, and God was truly bringing us to our knees.
At that moment I knew what needed to be done. I began making phone calls to pastors in my area, organizing a prayer service for that night. In just over an hour, a service was scheduled. Never had a day gone so slowly. At 4:30, I left the bank and drove home as quickly as the law allowed. I came into our apartment and finally saw the images I could only picture in my mind, but it was so different, so much more. There was nothing much to say.
I knew I needed to prepare some remarks for the service, that the community and its many churches would be looking to the Lord and to their pastors for comfort and strength. As I arrived at the church (we held the service at the largest church in the community), I was amazed at the number of people already there. All barriers had come down when those buildings fell, and as we began, hundreds and hundreds of people had gathered.
As my chance came to speak, I walked to the pulpit, looked out on the faces that were just as anguished, confused and determined as I felt myself. I remember saying something along these lines:
Our world has changed, and thousands of our fellow citizens have been called to stand before God. They didn’t expect to meet Him today, so we can only hope that they were prepared. We don’t know how many perished, but God’s protective hand was still seen in the thousands who survived. Tomorrow may bring more attacks, more terror, but we here tonight join our hearts in prayer and faith. We trust that no matter what tomorrow holds, we will hold to Jesus. We may meet next year in remembrance of this day, we may once again come to this place to mark the five-year or ten-year anniversary; some of us may be here, others of us may have already been called home. But as time passes and the grief abates, we will never forget. My prayer is that we continue to fall before the Lord as we are doing right now, and that we will seek to be united in purpose, united in trust, and united in praise. May God bless America.
So, five years have passed. It seems like yesterday; it seems like a lifetime. Watching the reruns of that day, of television anchors delivering what information they were being given. Some of it was wrong, while other facts proved uncannily accurate. I watched today, seeing the images that are now familiar to us all. Yet for the countless times I’ve watched those images over the last half decade, I am not jaded. I caught myself weeping, trying to remember what America used to be and what it has now become. I was weeping for the lives lost and homes broken. I was weeping as I listened to one call made from United Flight 93, a woman calling her son, saying, “The plane’s been hijacked. I might not ever see you again, but I want you to know I love you.”
In some ways, America is still united, while in others it is more divided than ever. We are safer, but are still extremely vulnerable. We are determined, but know it is only a matter of time until we will face yet another tragedy. But there is one thing I believe America will never be: we will never be healed.
September 11, 2001, will remain an open wound for everyone who experienced it. As events unfolded, I felt a connection with every American, and every generation. I felt a closeness to my grandfather’s era, as families crowed around radios to listen to reports from the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor sixty years before. But as tragic as that day was for America and the world, our world is smaller; the attacks weren’t against military personnel somewhere in the Pacific. The attacks were in our living rooms. While the vast majority of Americans were in their homes that fateful morning, it was like we were there.
Perhaps that is the greatest legacy of what we know as just “9/11.” Our worst day was also, in its own way, our best day. Heroes were made that day. Many of them never left the carnage, while others stand as the true example of an American. Some were made that day, and others have been made in the five years of aftermath. We honor our heroes by living our lives, looking back to remember, but also looking forward to what their sacrifice has inspired us to do.
And through it all, God has been here. He has helped protect us from similar or worse attacks, but we should never turn our back on Him again. There is so much left to do, so much closer to Him and to each other we can grow, another mile to walk for our brothers and sisters. Let us never forget the day, and the lessons we learned. And may we never forget to turn to Christ for our comfort, strength and hope.
© 2006, Chris Keeton and Soulscape Press. All rights reserved. All material printed on this site is protected by the copyright law of the United States. It may not be reproduced, distributed, transmitted, displayed, published or broadcast without the prior written permission of Chris Keeton and Soulscape Press, obtainable by writing to soulscape@alltel.net. Altering or removing any trademark, copyright or other notice from copies of the content is not permitted. Any and all portions of material copied from the Soulscape Blog must be properly attributed to Chris Keeton and Soulscape, and cited with original blog web address.
It was just another day, another half-hour drive to work at a bank. The sky was a beautiful blue over the gentle rolling Kentucky hills, the sun still rising behind me, accentuating the mid-September weather drawing closer to autumn. I turned off the interstate, had been listening to NPR’s Morning Edition as I did every morning during the 25-mile trip. Just another mile to go before starting another day at the bank, opening accounts, counting deposits, dealing with customers.
Two days before, I had resigned as co-pastor of my church, accompanying the resignation of my grandfather (after almost 14 years as pastor). The church had decided to vote the following Sunday, deciding whether I would be the next pastor. If they selected me for that position, then I was only a few weeks away from resigning from my job at the bank. Several people had moved on in recent months, so the entire work environment was different. Yes, this week would certainly bring some changes.
I opened the drive-through lanes at exactly 8:00 AM, as was my responsibility every other week. There were night deposits to run, early customers getting some cash on their way to their own workplaces, paperwork to arrange before it needed to be sent to the main office. A Tuesday morning in mid-September at a bank in a tiny eastern Kentucky town was not exactly Grand Central Station, so after about fifteen minutes, things calmed down dramatically.
Just a few minutes before 9:00 AM, the lobby was opened, a few customers waiting to come in. Calvin, from the gas station down the road, and others were talking amongst themselves, waiting to conduct their own morning routine of making deposits and getting change. As I was mindlessly running the transactions, I heard someone say through the drive-up window’s speaker, “Did you hear about that plane hitting the World Trade Center?”
Immediately I left my customer and went back to my desk (I was running double-duty at that time: teller and customer service rep). Powering on my computer, I immediately went to msnbc.com and saw the picture of the first tower burning, the black gaping wound on the building a sinister smile, almost in anticipation of what was about to happen. It was 9:01.
I returned to my customer and finished the transaction, a few more people coming in, the regulars we expected every morning. About ten minutes later, our courier came in on his morning run. He said, “Did you hear about the World Trade Center?” I said that we had, and that I saw the picture of the tower. I commented about how I couldn’t understand how a plane could hit the building, and he said, “There was another plane.” Immediately I understood what he meant, at least on a subconscious level. The intellectual side of my mind began screaming, “You have to see! This can’t be happening!”
I returned to my computer, smacking the keyboard, that annoying screensaver disappearing and the web browser showing the same image I’d left: two towers, one hole, black smoke. I clicked refresh and … nothing. I clicked again … nothing. A low, guttural sound came out of my mouth as I tried again, only with the same results. I tried other web outlets: CNN, Fox, ABC, with no luck. I decided to try MSNBC one more time. This time a page loaded, the explosion in the second tower in plain view, and the words, “Due to high traffic volume, many features may not function properly.”
Of all the people who have a passion for history, a love of my country, and a fair talent with technology, wouldn’t you know it would be me who could get no information; we didn’t have the ability to get Internet information, we had no television. All we had was a radio that I’m certain had been used at one time to bring the modern sounds of disco to some leisure-suit clad youngster years before.
As I searched the dial (yes, the ‘dial’) I was dialing my home phone number. My wife answered, and I told her to turn on the television. Another line began to ring, so I answered it. It was my mother, asking me if I’d heard the news. So, here’s a bank employee, one hand on a radio Moses could have taken on the Exodus, my neck bent as I hold the telephone receiver against my shoulder, my left index finger punching buttons as I switched phone lines between my wife and mother.
I was done for the day, and fortunately my co-workers understood and pretty much left me alone. I wanted to go home, to see the images described to me via radio and phone. I knew that while Internet traffic would be off the charts, the bank traffic would be almost nothing (I believe, besides the few corporate customers we had during the day, we only had about six or seven regular customers all day). But I had to stay. I’ve always enjoyed listening to the radio, or hearing stories, my mind putting images with the words, making it come alive in my imagination.
Today, the images wouldn’t come.
The texture of the night deposit safe remains still in my mind, cold and rough, much like the feeling within my heart as I listened to the radio and my wife’s voice on the telephone. I kept trying to reconcile the descriptions with the only image I had seen of the towers, the moment of the second impact. Then my wife said, “One of the towers just collapsed.” I said, “You mean part of one of the towers fell off?” She replied, “No, one of the towers collapsed.”
Still, I would not, I could not imagine it. In my mind I could see the floors above the impact simply falling off the top of the structure, crashing onto the buildings and people below. I said again, “The top of the building, where the plane hit. That fell off?” Then my wife said the words that will remain etched in my mind for the rest of my life, words that made me finally understand.
“Chris, the building no longer exists.”
At that moment my mind opened, and I saw a building falling, the images of a sideways fall and a vertical collapse intermingling. I was numb, there were no words. I wanted to run across the street to the appliance store and get in front of a television. I told my wife I loved her, and I would call her back. My mother had long since hung up, calling her brother who was a basket case, having lived near New York several years before.
I had never been to New York, knew the World Trade Center as those two tall buildings in the pictures, my first real memory of anything concerned with the WTC coming after a sleep over at my best friend’s house. Early that February morning of 1993, images of soot-covered people being led to ambulances hidden by smoke and chaos, people shaken and wounded, such a contrast with the snowflakes peacefully and gently falling all around them. “Terrorism, huh? That’s wild. Let’s go listen to some music.” Not a great impact on a teen-ager.
Now, even though I had only been married a little less than a year, and no children planned anytime soon, I realized that our world had changed, that my children would never grow up in a world that I was already beginning to forget, a world of relative innocence and safety. If it could happen in New York, it could happen in the small towns of the heartland, in my own backyard, where a terrorist attack would truly inflict terror upon my broken nation.
I sat transfixed, looking at the small radio speaker as if it were a large-screen TV, when word came of an attack on the Pentagon, and reports of another plane inbound toward Washington. I imagined the horror surrounding the heart of the Armed Forces, and what I knew would follow: an airplane destroying our Capital or the White House. I am known for remaining pretty calm even in the midst of tragedy and chaos, but at this moment, I lost control.
The tears began, and they wouldn’t stop. What was happening? Has the Lord finally had enough and is He bringing this country to its knees? I knew we were at war, that it wouldn’t be over for years, maybe not even in my lifetime. Our arrogance had finally caught up with us, and God was truly bringing us to our knees.
At that moment I knew what needed to be done. I began making phone calls to pastors in my area, organizing a prayer service for that night. In just over an hour, a service was scheduled. Never had a day gone so slowly. At 4:30, I left the bank and drove home as quickly as the law allowed. I came into our apartment and finally saw the images I could only picture in my mind, but it was so different, so much more. There was nothing much to say.
I knew I needed to prepare some remarks for the service, that the community and its many churches would be looking to the Lord and to their pastors for comfort and strength. As I arrived at the church (we held the service at the largest church in the community), I was amazed at the number of people already there. All barriers had come down when those buildings fell, and as we began, hundreds and hundreds of people had gathered.
As my chance came to speak, I walked to the pulpit, looked out on the faces that were just as anguished, confused and determined as I felt myself. I remember saying something along these lines:
Our world has changed, and thousands of our fellow citizens have been called to stand before God. They didn’t expect to meet Him today, so we can only hope that they were prepared. We don’t know how many perished, but God’s protective hand was still seen in the thousands who survived. Tomorrow may bring more attacks, more terror, but we here tonight join our hearts in prayer and faith. We trust that no matter what tomorrow holds, we will hold to Jesus. We may meet next year in remembrance of this day, we may once again come to this place to mark the five-year or ten-year anniversary; some of us may be here, others of us may have already been called home. But as time passes and the grief abates, we will never forget. My prayer is that we continue to fall before the Lord as we are doing right now, and that we will seek to be united in purpose, united in trust, and united in praise. May God bless America.
So, five years have passed. It seems like yesterday; it seems like a lifetime. Watching the reruns of that day, of television anchors delivering what information they were being given. Some of it was wrong, while other facts proved uncannily accurate. I watched today, seeing the images that are now familiar to us all. Yet for the countless times I’ve watched those images over the last half decade, I am not jaded. I caught myself weeping, trying to remember what America used to be and what it has now become. I was weeping for the lives lost and homes broken. I was weeping as I listened to one call made from United Flight 93, a woman calling her son, saying, “The plane’s been hijacked. I might not ever see you again, but I want you to know I love you.”
In some ways, America is still united, while in others it is more divided than ever. We are safer, but are still extremely vulnerable. We are determined, but know it is only a matter of time until we will face yet another tragedy. But there is one thing I believe America will never be: we will never be healed.
September 11, 2001, will remain an open wound for everyone who experienced it. As events unfolded, I felt a connection with every American, and every generation. I felt a closeness to my grandfather’s era, as families crowed around radios to listen to reports from the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor sixty years before. But as tragic as that day was for America and the world, our world is smaller; the attacks weren’t against military personnel somewhere in the Pacific. The attacks were in our living rooms. While the vast majority of Americans were in their homes that fateful morning, it was like we were there.
Perhaps that is the greatest legacy of what we know as just “9/11.” Our worst day was also, in its own way, our best day. Heroes were made that day. Many of them never left the carnage, while others stand as the true example of an American. Some were made that day, and others have been made in the five years of aftermath. We honor our heroes by living our lives, looking back to remember, but also looking forward to what their sacrifice has inspired us to do.
And through it all, God has been here. He has helped protect us from similar or worse attacks, but we should never turn our back on Him again. There is so much left to do, so much closer to Him and to each other we can grow, another mile to walk for our brothers and sisters. Let us never forget the day, and the lessons we learned. And may we never forget to turn to Christ for our comfort, strength and hope.
© 2006, Chris Keeton and Soulscape Press. All rights reserved. All material printed on this site is protected by the copyright law of the United States. It may not be reproduced, distributed, transmitted, displayed, published or broadcast without the prior written permission of Chris Keeton and Soulscape Press, obtainable by writing to soulscape@alltel.net. Altering or removing any trademark, copyright or other notice from copies of the content is not permitted. Any and all portions of material copied from the Soulscape Blog must be properly attributed to Chris Keeton and Soulscape, and cited with original blog web address.
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