Before and After, and the Power of Collective Memory

There was before. And there was after.

Before was a bright, warm Tuesday morning where, by the grace of God, my eyes opened early to a quiet, comfortable dorm room. Before was a hot shower, and a leisurely preparation for a day of classes and meetings and work. Before was the television on in the background, a quietness before the ringing telephones, chiming instant messages, and the shout and gasp of voices in shock.

I can remember the feeling of my wet hair on the back of my neck as I heard the newscasters making announcements on the television, and I remember stopping to watch the images, frozen where I stood, wrapped in a towel, unable to move forward into a day where everything changed.

After was forcing my feet to move, forcing my mind to choose clothes, forcing myself to prepare for classes and meetings and work. As the ten o'clock hour approached, I walked, in a daze, to the chapel at the center of campus. I know now that I went to Daily Chapel in hopes that someone would have an answer, or information that they weren't telling us on television. That wasn't the case. After were the questions we all had: Why? When would it happen again? What had happened to the safety of our little "bubble on a hill" that was supposed to protect us from all the bad things that happened "out there"?

For many Millenials, the events of 9/11 dragged us into adulthood; we kicked and screamed and fought like hell to hold onto our childhoods. I was halfway through my 19th year and had just begun my sophomore year in college; I would have liked to stay a "kid" a little bit longer. But the terrorist acts that crash-landed in the lives of all Americans forced us to realize that we live in a world where people are capable of terrible, destructive acts of hatred and anger. (So many of us at my Lutheran college grew up in a world where the worst one could experience was passive-aggressiveness, terrorism was as foreign a concept to us as a steam train might be to a caveman.) I was fortunate to be in a place where even though I was away from my parents, I was surrounded by adults who exemplified patience, forgiveness, grace, faith, and community in those dark days.

For most of America, the events of 9/11 are defined by collective memory. We recount to each other the stories of where we were when we heard the news, and of the days and weeks that followed. We listen to each other's shock, pain and confusion of those days. But so many of us did not lose a loved one or friend in those terrorist acts, so all we have are those shared memories. Perhaps friends and family members are woven into our memories; in that way, we have "loomed" together a great tapestry of memory. (In my mind, voices that stand out that day include my mom, my friend Rachel who lived across the hall from me, one of the campus chaplains, and, strangely, my geography professor.) In the creation of this tapestry of shared memory, we can be certain that we will never forget the fear we first felt when we heard the news, but, even more strongly, how our communities came together in the hours and days that followed. We hugged, we cried on each other's shoulders, we held hands in circles of prayer, song, and solidarity, we gave blood and money and supplies, we talked in classrooms, in offices, in dorm rooms, and in the chapel of our anger, our thoughts, our sadness, and of the power of forgiveness.

And on this day, ten years later, we still struggle with the sadness, the anger, and the power of forgiveness. Like the bright blue sky on September 11, 2001, our lives contain occasional clouds. Yet between these clouds, we glimpse the boundless beauty of the sky, and it is in those moments of beauty that we find the grace to carry on.