I was just thinking…

There are days that, no matter how much time passes, you remember like they were yesterday. For my generation, there are a few of these significant markers, and 9/11 is the most significant by far. On that seemingly ordinary morning, the course of the entire world was altered by the horrific actions of extremist men bent on inflicting destruction. Their misguided ideology drove their actions, and the result was chaos and bloodshed in the name of “holy war.”

I had just dropped my 3-year-old daughter at preschool and was driving home when the radio host announced what appeared to be a terrifying accident–a plane crashed into one of the World Trade Center towers. Arriving at home shortly after that announcement, I went inside and turned on the television just in time to see the second plane hit the other tower in real time. I said to myself that one plane could be a coincidence and an accident, but a second plane is something else entirely. Then came the reports of the plane hitting the Pentagon followed by the plane crashing in a Pennsylvania field. Even if, by chance, the two hitting the towers were a freak accident, now there was no denying our nation was under attack. The airspace over the US was being cleared and travelers were being stranded far from home. New York and Washington, DC looked like battle zones. Everything in this great nation came to a screeching halt.

In the days that followed, there was a mix of panic and patriotism, grief and giving, crisis and community. Differences were put aside to fill trucks and train cars with bottled water, granola bars, and paper towels. People who would not otherwise speak to one another shared kind words of support and maybe even hugs. The evil intent of the terrorists produced an unintended consequence–people came together in unprecedented ways to help strangers.

But where has that sense of community gone? America stands fractured today, more so perhaps than at any point in our history. Will it take another catastrophe for our nation to stand united once again? As today we remember those who lost their lives on 9/11/01, consider how far we have fallen as a nation from the common ground we defended so fiercely those days and weeks after the attacks. Consider the forces now at work (which, by the way, have been at work since the creation of the world), colluding to divide us over race, economic status, political ideology, and such.

We are constantly inundated with fake news, fabricated “facts,” and false claims. Truth is not relative and has only one Author. That’s the answer–the only answer.