worth a thousand words

Two Presidents in prayer at the tenth anniversary of  9/11.

Proverbs 17

"He who is glad at calamity will not go unpunished." (v. 5b)

Calamity (def.) = a state of deep distress or misery caused by major misfortune or loss

On September 11, 2001, I turned on my t.v. and witnessed the most horrific attack on America in our history.  I also saw a gleeful woman in the middle east surrounded by equally wickedly gleeful people celebrating and dancing in the streets in celebration of the murder of 3000+ innocent Americans.
Romans says "Beloved, do not avenge yourselves, but rather give place to wrath; for it is written 'Vengeance is mine, I will repay,' says the Lord."  (Rom. 12:19)  I have know this verse since early in my conversion and wrong or right, it has always brought me comfort and taught me to not retaliate.

"...the glory of children is their father." (v. 6b)  

My Jamie is the glory, honor, hero to Brandon and Silas.  How true this is!  They utterly adore their daddy.

"He who justifies the wicked, and he who condemns the just,

Both of them alike are an abomination to the Lord." (v. 15)

"[Abraham Lincoln] was... a man of integrity.  He never tried to win more for a client than he felt the client deserved.  And if someone wanted his services, he had to convince Lincoln that his cause was just.  Moreover, if it turned out that a client had deceived him, Abe would simply quit the case. --- On one occasion, Lincoln had present his client's side to the judge.  After he was through, the opposing counsel produced a receipt proving Lincoln's client had lied.  Before this attorney had finished talking, Lincoln had left the courtroom and returned to his hotel. --- 'Go get Mr. Lincoln,' the judge ordered. --- 'Tell the judge I can't come,' Lincoln replied to the clerk. 'My hands are dirty, and I came over to clean them.'" (Sounding Forth the Trumpet for Children. p.152)

I loved this story as I read it to my boys yesterday morning.  As I read this scripture this morning, I was reminded of it.

our D.C. excursion, part 5: 9/11 Memorial

(For the beginning of our trip, click here.)

The only thing I wanted to see in New York was the recently opened 9/11 Memorial at Ground Zero.

It did not disappoint.

I reached my right hand forward over the black granite and swept my fingers over the name:

Renee A. May and her unborn child

Suddenly everything stopped.  I looked over toward the woman standing nearest me.  She had seen me reach my hand over the name.  Where before she was collectedly somber, her hands now covered her eyes as she convulsed with quiet sobs.

I saw at least 4 other such names.

Standing on this mountaintop

Looking just how far we've come

Knowing that for every step

You were with us

Kneeling on this battle ground

Seeing just how much you've done

Knowing every victory

Was Your power in us

Scars and struggles on the way

But with joy our hearts can say

Yes, our hearts can say

Never once did we ever walk alone

Never once did You leave us on our own

You are faithful, God, You are faithful.

~Matt Redman

"Never Once"

A work in progress - the Freedom Tower will rise to 1776 feet.

Survivor Tree.
This Callery Pear Tree was in the WTC Plaza,
was crushed and nursed back to health.
All the other trees at the Memorial
are swamp white oaks, so this one stands out
...as it should.

WTC Tridents can be seen through the unfinished museum scheduled to open next year.

(click here for part 6)

My 9/11

I was fast asleep in my bed on Dakota Road in Garden Grove.
My hours at Disneyland often began in the afternoon and went well into the night.  So, by the time I returned home, it would take me until 1 or 2 am to wind down and finally make my way to bed.

It was the first day of my vacation.  In two days, I would board a plane with my friend Jan Gohlitz and fly to Tokyo, Japan to visit my friend and sister-in-the-Lord, Catherine Ramirez.

Early (for me) on a Tuesday morning, my cell phone rang.  On the other end was my mom's urgent and very serious voice: "Kori, turn on the t.v.  Planes have flown into the World Trade Towers."  Still half asleep and quite groggy, I had trouble discerning... understanding... grasping what she was saying.  But the tone and panic in her voice told me this was a very worrisome incident.  My mom was driving her car when she called me...on her way to work at Children's Hospital in San Diego.  I stumbled my way to my small 13 inch t.v. and flipped it on.
Confusion.
What was wrong with my television?  There were two images being projected.  I tried to read quickly the heading at the bottom of the screen.  The Pentagon had been hit.  What?  I thought it was the Twin Towers.  On the left side of the screen I could clearly see the Twin Towers immersed in smoke like torches, but the right side showed only smoke.  Was that the Pentagon?  "Mom," I said, "I think the Pentagon's been hit."  The shock in her voice was stunning.  "What?"  "Mom, what's going on?"  We both new we were under attack, but by who? and why?  And what would be hit next?

I called Tony, a precious friend of mine, and told him to turn on his t.v.  And while I was on the phone with him, I saw the towers fall.  Breathless and shocked...even from my long-distance location.

When I was 13, my junior high school took a trip to Washington, D.C., and New York.  We were asked if we'd like to visit the World Trade Towers.  Only about ten of us wanted to go.  Since I like to make the most of every opportunity, I, of course, wanted to climb to the top levels of the tallest buildings in New York.  I stood up there more than 100 stories straight up, stepped down into a window and felt the building sway.  Whoa.  Never did I imagine what would occur nearly 15 years later.

I can't tell you what I wore that day...because I didn't care what I wore.  I had to peel myself away from the television.  For days, I and all of America were glued to that screen as the images played over and over and over and over again. As our President, George W. Bush, put into that role "for such a time as this" responded appropriately and accordingly and we all stood in solidarity to make right this terrible wrong committed against the beautiful USA.

An inspiring moment to me during those days was when George Bush stood atop the rubble at Ground Zero and when handed a bullhorn, attempted to encourage the people within earshot.  A man shouted, "I can't hear you!"  President Bush looked squarely in the direction of the man's voice and shouted into the bullhorn, "Well, I can hear you.  The whole world hears you!  And the people who knocked these buildings down will hear from all of us soon."  Cheers erupted and my heart swelled.  A decisive leader at a time when we desperately needed it.

I had a plane ticket to Japan which I seriously considered changing to New York so I could do something to help...after all I didn't have to work and suddenly had a whole lot of free time on my hands.

Our September 13th flight to Japan finally left on September 17th.  As I passed a news stand in a train station in Tokyo, I saw a magazine peppered with pictures of 9/11.

And so I picked up newspapers, Time magazines, Newsweek and the like during that week.  And I picked up the paper when Saddam Hussein was captured and again this May when Osama bin Laden was killed.  I popped VHS tapes in my VCR during the days of 9/11 because I knew one day I would want to have these things to show my children.  And here I am today teaching my children and sharing with them the seriousness of that day.

behind us is an FDNY first responder fire truck from Queens.

The boys and I visited the Nixon Presidential Library Monday to commemorate the lives of those lost on September 11, 2001.

Life in this country changed that day.  If you doubt it, you only have to think of the security checks we go through on a regular basis when we visit this place or that.

In disbelief of what we were experiencing as a nation and only having the stories of Pearl Harbor to refer to, I asked my mom that Tuesday, "Mom, is this worse than Pearl Harbor?" because to me it seemed awful.  "Yes," she said.  And silently in my heart, I said, "oh."


Praying for our soldiers abroad and our heroes here at home and the families still feeling the painful loss of this day 10 years ago.
God bless America.



p.s. I know mine is only one of millions of stories.  Please take some time to leave your 9/11 story in the comment section of this blog.

Forever Changed: 9/11 in Remembrance

Remembering always those lost 10 years ago.  And how I was forever changed because of 9/11.

9/11 Parking Spots

An account of B. Viggiani after 9/11.  New York.


From "A Tribute to the Heroes of 9-11, 10 Year Memorial" calendar.
www.tfpublishing.com

"Those first days of Autumn 2001 seem to wash away the lingering darkness of loss that hung over the city, like a bad dream.  The smells were nearly gone or perhaps we had just gotten used to them by then.  The skies were clearer that day than they had been in some time and I found I could look upward with less fear than I had in some time.  I forced myself to get back to my regular pre 9/11 NJ Transit schedule I had so routinely done in the past, sitting in the last car at the same window seat reading the sports pages.  It was important to get back to reality; the quicker the better.  New York City was too quiet for too long.  Even the notorious horn honkers, New York City taxi drivers, were more courteous with fewer blasts.  People actually said hello or at least made eye contact on the city's streets.  It was time for the city to 'get back to normal'!

And so it was that cool October evening heading home from another day at work.  The early autumn sun made black silhouettes of the lower city skyline slowly descending from behind.  As much as I tried not looking across the expanse of the Hudson River toward "that skyline", I found myself unable to keep from looking, drawn there everyday almost as if to somehow keep their spirits alive.  So I looked.  And the towers still weren't there.

Same train, same car, same window seat.  Returning home.  Losing myself in the back pages of the NY Post, my beer sitting atop the flat metal screen under the window.  For a good part of the ride, I rarely, if ever glance out the window.  In fact the first stop that I usually put aside the paper and look out, is at the train's longest stop, Ridgewood.  Sitting in the last car, one could look straight down Ridgewood Avenue.  As dusk settled in, the town's many storefronts became lit to greet the night ahead.

I was about to return to the sports pages as the train slowly left the station when I noticed something odd just outside my window.  As the main street began to disappear from view, I watched a row of several automobiles go by, parked in those most sought after spots along the front row closest to the train platform.  Those commuters were the ones who left earlier than most to get those coveted spots.  I often wondered what they did for a living to get up so early to head into the city.

The first car that attracted my attention was a large model Mercedes Benz.  How dirty it was; especially sitting in such an upscale town as Ridgewood.  Dirty cars were just something you never saw, either driven or parked.  The car next to the Mercedes was just as dirty as was the next until the train was moving to fast for me to see anything more than the disappearing station.  The train was barely out of Ridgewood when it hit me like a lightning bolt.  The dirty cars parked there along the front row closest to the station platform; those same cars that made me wonder what the owners did for a living, their owners had parked their cars and headed off to work as they did every morning only...this time they never came back.

Now I can only wonder who each of them were as people, as husbands, wives, sons or daughters, friends to so many.  I wondered about their routines that day, that morning as they headed to work.  Did they stop for coffee and a bagel across the street from the train station after parking in their VIP-ish spots?  Did they kiss their loved ones goodbye?  What unfinished work awaited them at their offices across the Hudson?

Pulling into Ridgewood station that next morning on my way back to work, I held my breath and could feel my heart pounding.  It was that same feeling of not wanting to look but needing to as the train came to a stop.  At first I thought I would not be able to see that far, perhaps being saved from what I knew I'd encounter.  Yet, there they were.  I could barely see the tops of the cars but they were still there.  Dirty, side-by-side waiting for the turn of the car key, one dustier than the other, lined up in their front row spots closest to the platform.  Only now in daylight did I allow it to hit me.  As if seeing them in daylight confirmed my thoughts.

On that beautiful clear blue sky day, each of the owners of those cars stepped onto their favorite train, sat in the same seat, sipping coffee and reading the papers.  Yet, they never came back.  Not to their cars parked in those front row spots.  Or home to waiting wives, husbands, children, or friends.  They never came back.  Ever.

Soon after that morning the cars were removed from the parking lot and from those coveted spots.  It did not take long for those spots to be filled with a new group of early commuters and I began to wonder all over again.  What did those people do for a living?

Dedicated to those we lost that day and those who live with their loss.  Never Forget."

-B. Viggiani, August 2009