PASTOR'S NOTE

This past week has been a somber one.  Our nation observed and recounted the acts of heroism and the needless loss of life on 9/11/09.  President Obama spoke in the memorial service at the Pentagon Friday.  He did a really good job.  I have determined to visit the sites of these tragedies.  I will at some time make my way to the site in Pennsylvania where that plane plummeted to the ground killing all on board.  It was a plane that was believed to be headed for our nation’s capital building and the law-makers there.  Had not the passengers of that aircraft stormed the cockpit and resisted the terrorists, America’s grief and harm would have been much greater on that day.  Then it was on to Ground-zero in New York City, where those twin monuments to man’s ingenuity and prosperity crumbled to the ground after being hit by two planes used as missiles by their terrorist pilots.  Let us not forget that there is a third site.  Our nation’s Pentagon was also targeted that day.  The very heart of our military and defense was in the sights of those who hate us as a people and whose desire was to cripple us as a nation.  I suspect that the feelings I will feel once there will be akin to those I felt when I stood on the battlegrounds of Gettysburg where thousands of American boys and men gave their lives on both sides for those things they believed.  Or the time I stood on the western beaches of southern India where Thomas, the once doubting disciple of Christ gave his life slain by the very tribal people he came to share his faith with.  I felt there a sense of awe and that I was stepping on sacred ground:  where faith and ideology overcame the fear of death and from the common, and in some’s eyes,the mundane of humanity stepped forth heroes.  Had they not, more would have been lost.  These spontaneous warriors of faith and compassion gave all for their nation, their leaders and their brothers.  They did not seek this title or our praise.  They did not ask for your respect, honor or the tear of remembrance that ran down your face.  They wanted to live as much as anyone, yet on that day they fell for you and I.  I don’t want to just read about it and look at the pictures.  I want to stand where they fell and thank them aloud for what the silence of their lives lost means to all of us.  I have never had the priviledge, but I will some day stand upon the hill called Calvary and do there what I have been doing here for more than thirty-six years, praise Him aloud for being my Hero!