Today is the 18th anniversary of 9/11, and so as one might expect Facebook is full of all the 'Never Forget' memes and the 'I remember where I was..." stories. All of us old enough to remember this terrible day have our own stories, of course...but when I keep hearing people say how they will remember, I wonder what it is we are supposed to remember? For some, it's the story of Muslim Radicalism. For others it's the story of American Strength. For still others it's the story of how we began an Endless War On Terrorism.
But I wonder if maybe we aren't remembering the wrong things. As a Christian who reads his Bible, I am often struck by how much of the Biblical metanarrative is wrapped up in God trying to get our attention. He has blessed his people, who slowly but surely turn away from him when they prosper, and so God seeks to call people back to him. And in order to do this, he sometimes has to punish us to remind us where our true loyalties rest.
I don't know if 9/11 was God trying to rebuke America. But I do know that our response was anything but Godly. Sure, a few people started thinking about faith in the weeks to follow, but this was quickly followed by a call to spend money that they didn't have to keep the economy running, a suspicion of people of color with strange names, and eventually speculative wars that continue to do this day and seem to have no resolution. America's faith in itself grew over the next year, but in the 18 years since can we say that we are truly a more Godly nation? I seriously doubt it. Our dependence upon stuff, our self-pride and arrogance as a nation has exploded, and to this point it's culminated in electing a President who's a complete and utter numskull that daily gives more aid and comfort to the enemy than anything the terrorists could ever have done.
When will we wake up? I hope that today will be a humbling experience for us as a nation; I would even hope that we would ask the hard question of 'why do some cultures hate us so much' without most people stupidly answering 'Because they hate freedom!' But I know that neither of these things will happen. I will choose to remember 9/11 by trying to do what is right and good...maybe I'm delusional and self-righteous in thinking this, but Kingdom of God people always are to remember where our first loyalty rests.
