Dear Friends:
The noise leading up to the tenth anniversary of the 9/11 terrorist attacks puts me in mind of Solomon’s caution in Ecclesiastes 5:2: “Be not rash with your mouth, nor let your heart be hasty to utter a word before God, for God is in heaven and you are on earth. Therefore let your words be few. For a dream comes with much business, and a fool’s voice with many words.”
The tragedy and evil of that day is undeniable, though some have done their best to do that. The politicians, philosophers, theologians, journalists, evangelists and pundits of every persuasion who have tried to explain it to us have done little more than graffiti our memories.
My Word of Grace for Your Monday, September 10, 2001, was the third in a four-part series devoted to what it means to know that you are unconditionally, irrevocably loved by God. Tuesday morning, September 11, I was dressed and ready to leave for work when Patricia came in the door and told me that she’d heard on the radio that two planes had crashed into the World Trade Center. We turned on the TV and watched in stunned silence as reports came in about the attack on the Pentagon and the crash of United Flight 93 in Pennsylvania.
Later on that morning, at the Medical Center, the Department Heads gathered for prayer and a security briefing. We were told that more attacks were expected. Large centers and gathering places needed to go on alert. As the Level One Trauma Center for our region, we needed to activate our plans for mass casualty emergencies. The son of one woman present was working in the World Trade Center when the planes crashed into it. He’d made it out and called his mom. We cheered at the news. It was a brief respite of gratitude before the cloud of confused anxiety closed in again around us.
That night, I went in and looked at my sleeping fourteen-year-old Andrew and prayed with tears. “Lord, why has this violence come to us? What does it mean for my son? Protect him, please. Be merciful to all the orphans, widows, and childless parents from this day. Deliver us from evil. Be very near because I know nothing but you.”
The next week I interrupted the series on the love of God for us and wrote, what is in my estimation, one of the worst messages that I have written in the 13 years I have been sending out the Word of Grace for Your Monday. I lacked perspective and without that my words carried no authenticity. “Let your words be few,” said wise Solomon. “No one should read about suffering when they are suffering,” says Patricia.
It is my mission with these messages to say something true, real and positive about God each week. I studiously try to avoid political commentary in doing so.
Christ transcends politics and human affairs. He does not reorder our priorities, improve our aesthetics, or burnish our virtues, although all of those things will happen if we worship him with unreserved hearts. No, Christ is our Savior and we’d best think about why we need one and, if we have a Savior, how then do we live with each other? Those questions are my spiritual reaction to 9/11 ten years after.
Of all the things that I have read or heard about that terrible day, none have touched me as much as a simple essay, “Leap,” by the wonderful Christian writer, Brian Doyle, first published in Portland Magazine, the official publication of the University of Portland.
Doyle has the honesty not to try to make sense out of the incomprehensible. Instead, he sifts through the horror to find where love comes shining through. I hope that happens for you as you read “Leap.”
Brian Doyle, God is Love: Essays from Portland Magazine (Minneapolis: Augsburg Press, 2003), pp 16-17.
“O taste and see that the Lord is good. Happy are those who take refuge in him” (Ps 34:8).
Under the mercy of Christ,
Kent
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Please note that the content and viewpoints of Mr. Hansen are his own and are not necessarily those of the C.S. Lewis Foundation. We have not edited his writing in any substantial way and have permission from him to post his content.
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Kent Hansen is a Christian attorney, author and speaker. He practices corporate law and is the managing attorney of the firm of Clayson, Mann, Yaeger & Hansen in Corona, California. Kent also serves as the general counsel of Loma Linda University and Medical Center in Loma Linda, California.
Finding God’s grace revealed in the ordinary experiences of life, spiritual renewal in Christ and prayer are Kent’s passions. He has written two books, Grace at 30,000 Feet and Other Unexpected Places published by Review & Herald in 2002 and Cleansing Fire, Healing Streams: Experiencing God’s Love Through Prayer, published by Pacific Press in spring 2007. Many of his stories and essays about God’s encompassing love have been published in magazines and journals. Kent is often found on the hiking trails of the southern California mountains, following major league baseball, playing the piano or writing his weekly email devotional, “A Word of Grace for Your Monday” that is read by men and women from Alaska to Zimbabwe.