The casual summer months have come and gone. Labor Day is in the rearview mirror. It’s beginning to get cooler. And now it’s 9/11 again.
I know some don’t think much of that one day, or they forget it, or they ignore it, or they just consider it another day.
But I remember that one day, and the feelings, and the disbelief, and the emotions. I believe each of us, no matter what age, maintains a memory, an awareness, or some kind of knowledge, of 9/11.
I was working at the Episcopal Diocese of New York, located at the Cathedral of St. John the Divine. I didn’t leave New York City for two days. Images and actions and people’s faces cross my mind when I think about that one day, but those are my thoughts and memories, and I don’t dwell on them. That was then, this is now. Instead, I focus on just how much our lives were changed on that one day.
I recognize that I am referring to a generational event. Most of the university students I taught weren’t alive on 9/11/01. One of my colleagues pointed out that she was upset that one day because, at 8 years old, she couldn’t watch SpongeBob as news reports dominated the airwaves.
Suspicion, racial and religious profiling, car searches, increased security everywhere, pat-downs—all started then and continue. To this day, my bags are searched at Major League Baseball stadiums and even at the Metropolitan Opera.
Our travel was forever changed—security lines at the airport, taking off our shoes, checking for the allowed amount of liquids, which I always considered idiotic. I will not cite all of the developments because we have all experienced them.
Instead, I want to focus on where we are now. Are we, as a society, better because of all these impositions, or security matters, or new procedures, however you view them? Are we, as a world, eyeing each other in a better light, or is there an absence of light? Have we digressed to become a society that lives with constant suspicion, constant fear, constant wariness?
I don’t know. I’m not about to answer those questions. But I will ponder them.
And I will continue to pray.
So I remember 9/11. Not just for the people who were lost, some of whom I knew or knew of, but for the millions—including all of us—whose lifestyles were forever changed, good or bad, positive or negative, because of that one day.
Neva Rae Fox is a communications professional with extensive Episcopal experience, serving the boards of The Living Church Foundation, Bible and Common Prayer Book Society, Episcopal Community Services of New Jersey, and others.
