Today, September 11, 2009, marks eight years since the terrorist attacks on New York, the Pentagon, and the hearts of the American people. I was trapped in Ft. Lauderdale, Florida for a while at that time. With lots of time on my hands, I wrote what follows below. It is important to know that I was NOT a Christian at the time, although I thought I was. 9/11 means a lot of different things to a lot of different people. To me, it was perhaps the first of many events God used to get my attention. What I find most interesting is how the major object of my concern was me, rather than the heroes and victims of the attacks. I hope I have grown a little since then.

God bless you,

Cliff

Dear Friends and Loved Ones,

As I sit in my hotel room in Ft. Lauderdale, Florida, stranded here with a co-worker by the terrorist attack on New York and Washington, and intermittently stranded by rains from a tropical depression in the Atlantic, I am moved to write about my feelings, observations, and personal situation. Please, feel free to delete this if you are over-burdened already: many are. This exercise is for me - I offer it as a token to my friends as I offer my prayers to my God.

On Monday, September 10, 2001, I hurried off to Ontario International Airport and boarded a 7:00am flight to Fort Lauderdale, for a meeting on the 11th. I brought two books that I am reading with me; Soul Harvest, by Tim LaHaye and Jerry B. Jenkins (Book four of the Left Behind series, a Christian book about possible events in the Last Days), and Fates Worse Than Death (an Autobiographical Collage), by Kurt Vonnegut, a renowned atheist and satirist. I chose to read Vonnegut this time on the plane.

As I read this collection, I was captivated by a speech that is documented in the book, that Kurt Vonnegut gave at the Cathedral of St. John the Divine in New York City. In this speech, Mr. Vonnegut is basically trying to persuade people that there is no excuse to be constantly prepared for war, to stockpile nuclear weapons, etc. Today, this view will not be as popular as it might have been on Monday, but I found it profound. If you care to, read it with an open mind. If you cannot, or choose not to, delete it. It's probably not that important.

"... But suppose we foolishly got rid of our nuclear weapons, our Kool-Aid (reference to Jim Jones), and an enemy came over here and crucified us. Crucifixion was the most painful thing the ancient Romans ever found to do to anyone. They knew as much about pain as we do about genocide. They sometimes crucified hundreds of people at one time. That is what they did to all the survivors of the army of Spartacus, which was composed mostly of escaped slaves. They crucified them all. There were several miles of crosses.

"If we were up on crosses, with nails through our feet and hands, wouldn't we wish that we still had hydrogen bombs, so that life could be ended everywhere? Absolutely.

"We know of one person who was crucified in olden times, who was supposedly as capable as we or the Russians are of ending life everywhere. But He chose to endure the agony instead. All he said was 'Forgive them, Father - they know not what they do.'" ...

I you are interested, this speech begins on page 139 of Mr. Vonnegut's book.

Why did I send you this quote? Don't I want to light up the midnight sky of whoever is responsible for this cowardly act of terrorism? You bet I do. And I am deeply ashamed of that desire. I know better.

If you worship God, if you believe Jesus is your Savior, pray for the terrorists as hard as you pray for the dead, the wounded, and the families of the victims. Pray for our leadership, that they make sound decisions and don't accidentally start World War III.

I'm off my soapbox now, and back to my personal feelings.

At 9:00am on September 11th, 2001, (as you will, I will never forget exactly where I was and what I was doing when I heard the news), I was in our Fort Lauderdale office preparing for a meeting with a potential customer. Someone announced that the World Trade Center in New York had been hit by a plane. I assumed it was an accident. Almost immediately, I heard a second plane had hit the other tower. I remember thinking it must have been a mid-air collision. I still thought it was accidental. I stuck my head in the conference room where several people were gathered around a 4 inch TV. It slowly dawned on me that this was an intentional act of terrorism. I was so wrapped up in preparing for the appointment (at least this is the excuse I chose to believe), that I didn't react at first. After all, I was in Florida, and this was New York, and didn't affect me.

I avoided the TV, and concentrated on my duties for the day. As information and rumors piled up - the Pentagon was hit (fact), a car bomb exploded at the State Department (false rumor), an aircraft down outside of Pittsburgh (fact), a fifth aircraft missing (false rumor) - the magnitude of the days events started to sink in. Then, at 1:00pm, while I was on the phone to a co-worker discussing future business opportunities, my cellphone rang.

"Dad?," it was my daughter, Jessica. "Hi, Baby," I said. Then Jessica started crying. She knows I travel, and had no idea where I was. I often travel to the Washington area - we have an office in Fairfax, Virginia that sells to the government. I had to quickly terminate the other call. I could not talk at that moment.

Last night, in my hotel room, I called the airline to find out what my travel status was going to be. I am tentatively scheduled to get a flight out of Ft. Lauderdale tonight at 5:30pm. Even if they open the airport, the airline said that the airplane I am supposed to be on had to land somewhere besides here, so flights are going to take a few days to normalize.

I had a Bloody Mary for breakfast today. I've never done that before, and I don't even like Bloody Marys. I guess it was a small act of defiance.

I am now rambling, and I am certain that you are bored. I apologize. As I said, this was for me. I don't exactly feel better now, but somehow I feel slightly less burdened. That is better, for me, for now.

God bless you. I hope and pray that all of your loved ones are safe.

Cliff

Is it 1984 yet?

In high school, I was required to read Brave New World, Nineteen Eighty Four, Fahrenheit 451, and other tales of social experimentation gone awry. This was not a difficult task, as I was an avid reader, and I loved dystopian fiction. Of those, the imagery of Big Brother looking over our shoulder at every move was the most disturbing to me. Anecdotally, I remember seeing a Peanuts comic panel where Charlie Brown realizes that he will be 21 in 1984 (making Charlie 9 years my junior).

Written in 1949, Orwell described a totalitarian society made possible by technology. George missed the date, and a few other details, but he was uncannily foresighted in many ways. Listening to a group of distinguished Talking Heads on the radio on my way home from church today, former mayor of New York City Rudy Giuliani noted that we need to tell our children that their every move is subject to world wide peer review.
“Everyone with a cell phone is a photographer, everyone who blogs is a reporter! With YouTube, anyone with a video camera is a live news reporter.”

I believe he may be correct. Add to that the dashboard camera in almost all police cars, and the video surveillance systems employed in most government buildings and larger office buildings, and if you are in Urban USA and you don’t think you are on camera, it’s probably because you just haven’t spotted the camera yet.

How do we react to this information? How should we react? Some try to disengage from society, fearing the knowledge that they only have privacy in their own homes. Some espouse the new social order completely, almost with an attitude of “If you can’t beat them, join them!”

As a Christian, I’m inclined to believe that it shouldn’t matter. I am to live my life with the knowledge that my God is all knowing, all seeing. Nothing I do, nothing I even think, is hidden from Him. Why should I care what shows up on a video, or a photograph, or even a blog?

Unfortunately, the photographers, videographers and bloggers of the world are NOT all knowing, NOT all seeing. There have been many opportunities to misinterpret the situations and events surrounding a photograph or even a video. Bloggers (self included) have an agenda. Telling the truth might not further their agenda. The truth, for that matter, is not something that lends itself to mortal understanding.

John 14:6 states; ‘Jesus said to him, "I am the way, and the truth, and the life; no one comes to the Father but through Me.’

We Christians spend our lives trying to understand Jesus, which, by Biblical definition, would be to understand Truth. We try, and we gain a little ground, but we never come close. Jesus and God are one, and God is very mysterious. (see 1 Timothy 3:16) If God were able to be understood, He wouldn’t be much of a god, would He?

Ultimately, I want to live for Jesus, above reproach (1 Timothy 3:2), and count on Jesus to protect me. But, even if He doesn’t (see Daniel 3:17-18), I will live for Him.