“I love you,” Dad said before leaving for the hospice center. Three minutes earlier, the second hijacked jet had struck the South Tower in New York. Those were the last words I ever heard Dad say. That morning, I mourned with my country. And I mourned with my family.
Today marks 25 years since the attacks of September 11, 2001.
These are excerpts from my personal journal, written the following day, September 12, 2001.
I spent much of yesterday in front of the television, watching news coverage of the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.
The day began when I got the kids off to school and started work.
At 8:06 a.m., Dad called. [9:06 Eastern Time, just three minutes after the second hijacked jetliner crashed into the south tower of the World Trade Center in New York City.]
He and Mom were getting ready to go to the hospice center, where they were changing Dad’s pain treatment. Dad had lymphoma, and the morphine patches were no longer controlling his pain well enough.
Dad had gone squirrel hunting with Darb the week before and injured himself. He still planned to go hunting again on Tuesday, September 11. But when Darb came over Monday, Dad told him he wouldn’t be able to go because of the hospice appointment.
Darb asked if he wanted to go hunting right then.
Dad smiled and said he did.
They went, and Dad reported the next day, “I showed him up.”
“Does that mean you didn’t fall on your butt?” I joked.
“Yeah.”
“Did you get a squirrel?”
“Yeah.”
They needed to leave for the hospice center, and I could tell Dad didn’t want to go. There was restrained emotion in his voice.
“I’ll be thinking of you,” he said.
“I love you.”
“I love you, too.”
His voice was beginning to break.
We said goodbye, and I hung up the receiver but kept my hand resting on the phone. It was the closest I could come to hanging onto Dad, to touching him.
His story would be all but lost in the events later that morning.
I was working when I saw a news item about planes hitting the World Trade Center. I ran downstairs and turned on the television.
Linda and I stayed in front of the TV much of the day. We had visited the World Trade Center before. We had looked out over New York from the top of it. Linda had gone there to buy our Broadway tickets. We had attended a concert in the outdoor plaza.
I told Linda, “This was a Pearl Harbor event.”
Brad and Bec came home from school shocked.
As the towers collapsed, I told Brad that people were still inside. Tears immediately filled his eyes.
Bec said she had been crying throughout the day. At her school, one boy left the room to make a phone call. His uncle worked at the Pentagon. The boy came back crying and saying his uncle was gone.
Twenty-five years later, I still can't find anything in the Bible to help me understand tragedies like these. But it does give us words for grief, fear, courage, compassion, and hope.
Psalm 46 says that even when the ground gives way and mountains crumble, God is still our refuge and strength, “our sanctuary when trouble strikes.”
Paul said that when we see someone crying, “you can cry too” (Romans 12:15).
And even in a violent land controlled by a cruel occupying power, Jesus said:
“You’re blessed if you’re a peacemaker because people will recognize you as a child of God; they’ll see the resemblance” (Matthew 5:9).
Twenty-five years later, those still seem like good words to hang onto:
God is with us. Remember those who grieve and share their grief. Help those who are hurting. Work for peace.
A New Look for Our Bible Book Maps
We’ve started a new project at the Casual English Bible: rebuilding our Bible book map collections one book at a time.
We’re updating and improving maps, adding background information, and redesigning the way the collections work for Bible teachers and study groups.
We started with the Gospel of Mark, the shortest of the four Gospels.
The new Mark Bible Map Collection + Leader’s Guide combines an updated and redesigned collection of Bible maps with a newly redesigned Leader’s Guide.
The guide includes discussion questions, suggested responses, background information, teaching notes, life application, and quick map references.
Here’s the plan: work our way through the New Testament, book by book.
As those new editions are completed, we’ll eventually bring them together into what we expect to call the Complete New Testament Bible Map Collection — a major upgrade of our current large map package.
It’s a big project, so we’re doing it the only sensible way: one Bible book at a time.
New Music: One Kind of Blues, Then Another
Last week we released a new song, “Don’t Sing Me Your Blues,” based on Psalm 18.
Psalm 18 does not deny that life can get dark. It describes danger, fear, and being overwhelmed. But the writer refuses to make his home there.
“The LORD my God is the light in my darkness.
With you beside me, I can charge into an army.
By my God’s strength, I can jump over a wall.”
That is the heart of the song: hard times are real, but don’t make your bed there.
In October, we’ll release a very different kind of song.
“Whippoorwill,” based on Psalm 127, is sung from a dad’s point of view about children growing up, leaving home, and how deeply parents value the years we get to have them close.
There is sadness in watching your kids grow up and leave.
But Psalm 127 reminds us that they are still gifts:
“Look, kids are gifts from the LORD.
They are fruit of the flesh, your divine reward.
Children born to you when you’re young
Are like arrows in an archer’s hand.
That archer is one happy fellow
When his quiver is full.
Enemies don’t stand a chance
When your kids have your back.”
Proofreading Continues
At this point, 18 of the 27 New Testament books — two-thirds of the New Testament — have their proofreading fully sponsored.
In the Old Testament, Nehemiah, Lamentations, Ezekiel, Amos, and Habakkuk are fully sponsored.
Psalms is partially sponsored, with more work still to fund.
That means 23 Bible books are now fully sponsored for proofreading, with Psalms partly covered, while our proofreader continues working through the text.
The proofreading is not the flashiest part of the Casual English Bible project, but it may be the most important.
Our goal is still the same:
a carefully proofread Casual English Bible from Genesis through Revelation.
Help sponsor the proofreading of a Bible book or chapter.
— Steve
