9-11

I have about a dozen posts I've sought to write this past couple of weeks. When I have ample time, I will explain why it has been so difficult.

For now, I just want to quickly reflect upon the somberness and irony of this year's September 11 Anniversary.

I will spend it with my dear friend Arlene, a survivor of the Oklahoma City Murrah Federal Bombing. There is no significance in spending today together. Our first meeting of women to discuss and pray for today's most pressing social issues just happens to fall on this day. Several women from around our area were given the idea separately by the Holy Spirit to teach our congregations HOW to have a voice. How to research candidates and voting records. How to know the court cases that are affecting our countries morals and what to do about them. How to show our children how to live the Bible's helpful teachings, not just repeat them for stickers and patches. I am looking forward to spending my time with such like-minded ladies, and I am looking forward to the distraction I hope it will bring.

Today is also the day a man dear to me leaves for his second tour of duty in Iraq. I met him as a high school student in my husband's and my youth group several years ago. He was a lost and floundering mess, into drugs and M*aril*yn Mans*on. Today he is an extremely strong and committed Christian. He has been selected this time to be his platoon's chaplain. His first time over, he was gung ho to go and fight. This time, as he addressed the congregation Sunday at church, he spoke as someone with maturity and humility and a too-real sense that he might not come back. The first time he was a single young man with the rest of his life ahead of him. This time, he is married with a young son who will grow from an infant into a toddler without him home to see it.

Tomorrow, another young man dear to our hearts will join the ranks of military life as well. We have loved deeply every student we have ever had the privilege to teach, but this young man was like a son to us for two years before he fell into struggle and left town. For a time before that, he had courted our niece. He is the nephew of the couple who took me under their wings as a young adult single and brand new Christian. He was part of the family. Sunday, he came to tell us he was leaving for the Army, hoping for it to help him get back on the right track. The suddenness of it all, seeing him again - it has been a lot to take in. I hope for him that this is God's sovereign will. Iraq is such a dangerous place to be otherwise. But as safe as any other place if one has been called of God to go there.

And, of course, today is also an anniversary for hundreds of people I've never met, but whose lives I tend to try to imagine in heavy detail during these times of remembrance. I did get to make acquaintance with some wonderful NY firefighters once at a restaurant. They were here for support at our OKC bombing 10 year anniversary services. They were warm, polite and funny, despite their still very raw wounds, so unlike my skewed stereotype of "yankees." They were mourning friends and brothers, theirs and ours. And my heart is very much today with them and their beloved city. NY and OKC have long shared a strange but sticking bond that no other places would understand. And I hope for them that they never do. It is a bond that was forged in sadness, but is good for both cities nonetheless. They mourned with us in April. We mourn with them today. Please say a prayer for those whose wounds time doesn't heal, but who simply learn anew with each year to live with more and more grace.