15 years later.

This is a picture of part of the South Tower. I took it several years ago while in D.C. Still one of the most sobering things I've ever seen.

Generally on a day like today I simply link to the blog post I wrote several years ago. This year I needed to do something different. It's been fifteen years since the United States changed forever. That span of time is a little hard to comprehend. It feels in one way like it has been so much longer than that, yet at the same time it seems like there can't have been that much time between then and now. My morning was spent with a group of 8th grade boys who weren't even alive at that point and that in itself could be an entirely different blog post. This year's freshmen are learning about a piece of history that happened before they were born. These college freshmen who just graduated were only toddlers when the towers fell and Al-Qaeda became a household name. This morning I looked at 6th graders the same age I was when it happened.

I have to say nothing has quite made me feel like an 'adult' like realizing that as small group leaders we were vastly outnumbered by people who wouldn't be alive for several years after September 11. Speaking on the passing of time, the last search dog, Bretagne, who was deployed at Ground Zero, was laid to rest only four months ago. There isn't another living marker of the canines who worked tirelessly with their handlers to return those who were still alive to their families and bring peace to those who needed closure. One of the most powerful images of Ground Zero involved Riley, who is a golden retriever, riding in a basket across the chasm and the pile as he's going to a new area to search. There is video of this happening and you can hear firefighters praising him as he's being pulled across. As humans we ask dogs to do some crazy things and in the darkest times they seem to be there to offer assistance and  comfort in the only way they know how.

I've read several tweets and facebook posts memorializing this day. Today is a day we should never forget. I think in part because it would be dishonoring to forget those who lost their lives to the madness and terrorism, both the civilians and the first responder's. But, as John Green so eloquently wrote 'That's the thing about pain, it demands to be felt.' we can't shut ourselves off from the grief this day brings. There isn't progression when we just box up the pain we feel, you can't heal that way. You've got to wrestle with it no matter how much it hurts. Grief isn't easy, missing people isn't easy, but it does no good to shove things in a box and try and compartmentalize what makes us grieve in the first place. That is why such a day like today is hard, it makes us feel. We hurt, and we get angry,sad, and everything in between. You can't really hide from all that.

 Sometimes I wonder why God made our brains the way He did. We've got a remarkable ability to remember tragedy, occasionally far better than we do the celebrations of life. Most everyone who was a certain age on September 11,2001 can likely tell you what they were doing when they heard what had happened. I can. I think the point of these memories we have is so that we don't forget that hope was always there. Whether you realize it or not there was hope in abundance that day. We saw the way people should treat each other as first responder's rushed into the buildings to save those inside the Twin Towers or the Pentagon. There are little known stories like the mass evacuation and rescue of those on Manhattan Island. Covered in dust and grime, weary, and grieving themselves, we saw men and women come to the rescue, hope was present.

Those who risked their lives and those that lost them trying to do their jobs are called heroes. We honor them rightly in bestowing on them such a title. It's interesting though, especially in today's culture, they wouldn't be considered heroes because of the way they lived, but because of the way they died. That is a skewed logic. While it was certainly no ordinary day it was still their job to do this. They were heroes everyday they went to work, their lives, not their deaths, made them such. We so often overlook them in the daily grind. They come to mind when we need them but otherwise they are on the peripheral just doing their jobs. I can assure you as a man who comes from a family of such people they are heroes regardless of the magnitude of the emergency. They won't seek the recognition but give it anyway, they deserve it.

September 11,2001 showed the world grief personified. We saw the depths of depravity. We saw hate in its physical form. We also saw hope. We saw people bearing the burdens of one another. We watched strangers come together. We proved that united we can withstand whatever is thrown at us.

In ending I'll leave you with images that I remember without problem of that day. Many of them are SAR teams or dogs. Those are the things I latched onto as they flicked across the screen at eleven years old. Dogs were normal,, they weren't doing normal to me things, but I understood dogs. Hate isn't so easily processed.

Bretagne taking a break from being on the pile.

Riley