The Twin Towers and that ‘Off-Balance Feeling’
Photo by Julien Maculan on Unsplash
Maybe you remember, depending on your age, where you were or what you were doing on this day, September 11, 25 years ago.
I happened to be eating breakfast, about to head out the door to the church for my work as a newly ordained priest. ABC News shared the morning news on the kitchen counter TV.
Trying to gulp down my last spoonfuls of Cheerios and leave, suddenly I saw the footage of the first United Airlines plane barreling toward then crashing into one of the Twin Towers. It was staggering, and I knew I wasn’t going anywhere—not for a while anyway. Broadcast hosts Charlie Gibson and Diane Sawyer began trying to make sense of the spectacle, a Trade Center tower hit and set afire, the lives we knew were snuffed out. That was horrifying enough. And then, of course, within 20 minutes we watched as a second plane hit the other Tower, another scene imprinting on our minds forever the recognition that the first plane’s damage was more than an accident, something more sinister than we could have imagined. A field in Pennsylvania, a wing of the Pentagon, all sites of more destruction.
We would hear that day about the blazes, the billowed smoke, the screams, the people falling or jumping out of windows. At least one couple in New York, more than one observer reported, were seen leaping from the upper stories hand-in-hand.
Driving home that evening after a long day at the church, I listened to a call-in public radio show on my car’s speaker.
And the host had a question for listeners to call in and respond to: “How has what happened today changed your world?” As the program went on, as callers phoned in, most still a bit dazed, the host spoke of that “off-balance feeling you have when something hard has shaken you.”
Listener responses to that question and that simple phrase reminded me how I, how we, are not alone.
In the days to follow, I remember asking the people I ministered to at the worship services we’d hold, trying to pray and make sense of it all, “What do you do when your world as you know it changes? Where do you find security in a world that now seems more fragile?”
And I think the questions still carry weight. The world feels fragile still, and we try to walk forward still shouldering that “off-balance feeling.” It dogs us, from political fracturing, too many wars, an economy striking fear, migrants we’ve come to know and work beside targeted and carted off, to say nothing of our own failings.
Where we take such heartaches matter. To know in whom we regain trust helps us cope, and even hope again.
This very day a new song released from profound singer-songwriter Sandra McCracken (with Jon Guerra and N.T. Wright sharing writing credits) that matters here. The song is lovely, and the lyrics circle again and again back to the apostle Paul’s soaring phrase that our lives are not our own, but are, as the song is titled, “Hidden in Christ.” We are held secure in him. See https://ffm.to/hiddeninchrist
And as the Spirit, the lyrics remind us, comes to dwell in we who believe and long for help, there is a permanence, a forever certainty from the God who will never leave us stranded or forsaken, even when the world breaks our heart.
A good practice for these times is to listen to such reassuring words. To mull over—no, make that soak our imaginations in—words from hymns and songs and verses and stories that steady us when the world feels off-balance, assuring us again and again that we are held secure in the One who can be trusted.