On this morning in 2001, I was getting ready for the day.
I turned on the television that morning to watch the news with the volume off while I was trying to call my father at his workplace. It was my regular day of the week to do so. I saw images of the first tower smoking, and without the volume on, I was wondering what movie we were getting a sneak peek of. The phone at my father’s office was giving me the busy signal, something that NEVER happened because I call into a corporate switchboard. Weird. As I try dialing again, I see a plane fly into the second tower. It was at that point I realized I’m probably not watching a trailer for a movie, and then it was obvious why the phone droned on with a busy signal. The whole world was trying to call loved ones in the New York area.
My father worked in an office building across the Hudson River in Jersey City that had a clear view of the tragedy taking place. I ended up reaching my father much later in the day, and as it turned out, he was out on the road that morning for work purposes, and was nowhere near the city. I sighed in relief.
Several hours later, I did go to work on time out here in California, but obviously the whole country was concerned with what happened in New York and Washington D.C. that morning. Nobody was doing much work.
Everyone was concerned, especially when no one knew exactly what was up. There was a wash of misinformation going around as reporters speculated on things while trying to sort out the facts. Eventually, we did learn that it was carried out by Middle Eastern terrorists. One idea that trickled forth later in the day was that the very possible next targets were the propaganda machines that spread forth the message of Western decadence – Hollywood movie studios. I worked for the Walt Disney Studios. WE were possible targets. We were sent home early.
Obviously that was a terrible day. Those of you who lived through it probably remember, as I do, where you were and what you were doing when we learned of those events. Some of us might even have been there. I learned a few days later that a man who grew up in the house behind my childhood home had perished at the Pentagon. The tragedy struck home.
Ecclesiastes 9:12 tells us that no one knows when our time is up, but the Bible does give hope about how to use the time we have in Proverbs 3:5-6, “Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and lean not on your own understanding; In all your ways acknowledge Him, and He shall direct your paths.”