September 9, 2002

EDITORIAL:
Only God can create peace and hope out of chaos
___Almighty and gracious God,
___In this week of recollected tragedy and unspent grief, we come before you with breaking yet grateful hearts. Even as we remember the losses of Sept. 11, 2001--loss of life, loss of innocence, loss of security, loss of trust, loss of property, loss of perspective--we recognize you are the Giver of all those good things. You gave them to us in the first place, and you are capable of restoring them at your will and command.
___We praise you for your incomprehensible creativity. You created this world of wonder and awe. You designed beauty and laughter and music and truth and self-sacrifice and bequeathed them to us, for our pleasure. Incomprehensibly--to our minds at least--you calculated laws of nature that paradoxically bless and curse. You gave architects and engineers minds to build skyscrapers and jet airplanes that improved our world, enriched our lives and provided us with pride. Yet you also created minds that imagined how to turn these modern marvels into instruments of death. Still, you also brought forth heroes whose love, courage and devotion inspired and enriched us, even as we watched them through tear-filled eyes.
___We kneel before you in abject adoration. How could we do less? For although we cannot begin to understand the unfathomable mystery of your ways, we realize those ways are the reason we are here. Apart from you, we cannot know anything, cannot do anything, cannot feel anything. Apart from you, we are not.
___However, like every person who walked this sod before us, we are sinners. When we read your holy word, seek your precious face, consider our own human lives, we see into mirrors that remind us we indeed have sinned and have fallen short of the glory you wish for us. So, please forgive us.
___This week, we ask you to forgive us for taking life, liberty and happiness so much for granted prior to 9/11/01. Forgive us for walking blissfully in ignorance for far too long, little knowing the difference between Iraq and Iran, between the Taliban and freedom fighters, between the Koran and a coloring book. Forgive us for caring more about our next cup of gourmet coffee than a starving, thirsty child's next sip of water. Forgive us for worrying more about how we look than about women so oppressed they could not be seen in public. Forgive us for hurrying home to watch the news when we don't rush to secure aid for people whose tragedies occupy that news.
___O, Lord, we still don't understand the hate that flew those planes to destruction a year ago. Despite its shortcomings, we see the goodness and generosity of our nation, and we wonder what we could have done to make them hate us so. But please forgive us for not demonstrating Christian love so compelling that it would draw men and women to it. Forgive us when we splurged on luxuries and baubles and failed to support missionaries--or participate in mission action ourselves--that can and will change others' lives eternally.
___You have helped us in the past year. Our hearts are not nearly as heavy as they were that first evening last September. Still, we need you to forgive us for how we have felt in the meantime. Forgive us for when we saw news footage of 9/11 victims and survivors and said, "Thank God it didn't happen to me" but failed to ask you to send peace and comfort to those hurting people. Forgive us when we took pleasure at watching bombs drop and did not pray for innocent victims of evil who were unfortunate to be born in Afghanistan and not America. Forgive us for turning to a sitcom and not to prayer when hearing the news of all this heartache became too much to bear. Forgive us for forgetting to pray for protection of our troops, not to mention the salvation of our enemies.
___Thank you, God, for extending forgiveness when we seek it. Thank you for brave souls who expended their lives to save the lives of others. Thank you for cell phones that allowed husbands, wives, parents, sons and daughters one last conversation. Thank you for dedicated scholars who knew what we didn't and helped us understand people whose worldview remains so far apart from our own.
___Thank you for tears. They stained our cheeks but miraculously washed our hearts. We are better for having cried, for having looked upon loss of others and our own vulnerability and responded in the only honest way we knew how. We cried.
___Thank you for the passage of time, which does indeed begin to heal wounds. Thank you for the stories of those who perished, for they remind us of the infinite variety of your creation. They cause us to remember people are not numbers, but beings of inestimable value, made in your image.
___Thank you for hope. Not for wishful thinking, but for hope. More than ever, we know what a dangerous world this is. Yet we realize if Twin Towers can crumble, everything physical is transitory. But you, O, God, are everlasting and eternal. We accept as fact your promise to prepare permanent places for all who love you, who call you Lord. Thank you for hope that sustains us through temporal tragedy.
___Now we ask for your blessing, Lord. Please bring peace and comfort to those whose loved ones perished and to those whose lives forever changed a year ago this week. If they do not know the "peace that passes all understanding," if they have not accepted you as their Savior, we pray they would do so, even on this annivesary of chaos. Please bless those around the globe who have lost loved ones, health, home and hope because of hatred and the presence of evil. Guide national and global leaders, so that they would walk toward peace. Protect those deployed to secure peace. And help us to remember our only hope and home rests with you.
___ In the holy and healing name of Jesus,
___ Amen
___If Twin Towers can crumble, everything physical is transitory. But you, O, God, are everlasting and eternal. We accept your promise to prepare permanent places for all who love you, who call you Lord. Thank you for hope that sustains us through tragedy.
___ --Marv Knox
E-mail the editor at marvknox@baptiststandard.com


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