It was a beautiful blue-sky morning in New York City — and many other places — that tragically became anything but beautiful. Where were you when you heard the news? Were you there and became a witness?
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Remembering Sept. 11
The wounds remain
Inexhaustible forgiveness
I was at work and heard a coworker a few cubes over say “the Pentagon has just been bombed”, as that was the first piece of information which seemed to come over the internet. As we all got up to circle around her PC, additional details were coming in regarding not only the Pentagon, but NYC and the first tower. A few minutes later, news of the second tower… Then, our internet connection went down. Someone was able to find an old transistor radio for us so we could listen to the details which were trickling in.
About an hour later, an email come through. It was from the director of our area and was a forward from our VP. It said something to the effect of “get back to work and stop boggling down our resources…if something news worthy happens, we will send out an email to let you know”. In addition to all of the thoughts and feelings I carried from September 11th, was this horrible corporate mandate and lack of compassion from the executives in the company I was working for at the time. I continued to work for that company for 8 more years, but really never got over how we were treated as employees on 9/11. It was just last year when I decided to forgive that V.P. and focus really on what 9/11 should teach us—Jesus’ command to love one another. “But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you (Matthew 5:44).” (This morning’s ELCA Facebook post.)