Rededication Day, Part I — 9/11

The other day, Tony, the director of my choir, the Starlite Chorale, sent us an e-mail detailing how we would be performing our Spring show in Stryker Hall, which is part of Linden Reformed Church. His message made me think about September, 2001, which was the last time we were there — an unexpected Friday evening rehearsal on September 14, 2001, a day which ought to be celebrated every year in our nation, a day which I now call Rededication Day. To explain why I feel this way requires me to tell you my experiences on September 11, 2001, the day of the attack on and terrifying collapse of the World Trade Center towers.

On that Tuesday morning, I was commuting to work as usual. I had about a 40 mile commute each way, so I would always listen to the radio for music, talk and traffic reports. I was just about to make a turn off to the next highway I had to travel when I saw a traffic jam ahead of me. I turned on my favorite talk radio station expecting a report, but heard some commentator talking excitedly about how “the plane hit the World Trade Center”. I thought of a TV show I’d seen which talked about how a propeller plane had hit the Empire State building in the 1930s, and then wondered when this report would be over so I could get the traffic. Then he said that another airplane had struck the other World Trade Center tower, and with chilling certainty I knew that it had been an attack. I no longer cared about traffic. I found myself yelling at my radio as if someone could hear, as if those people who planned this attack could hear my hatred of them. I yelled, “Death to my country’s enemies! Death to my country’s enemies!” over and over again. People who know me would tell you that this is not a typical thing for me to say, ever. I never wanted to hate my country’s enemies — I wanted to defeat them with courage, resolve and graciousness in victory. There’s a quote from Kurt Vonnegut Jr.’s book, Mother Night, that explains how I feel:

There are plenty of good reasons for fighting…but no good reason ever to hate without reservation, to imagine that God Almighty Himself hates with you, too. Where’s evil? It’s that large part of every man that wants to hate without limit, that wants to hate with God on its side. It’s that part of every man that finds all sorts of ugliness so attractive. It’s that part of an imbecile…that punishes and vilifies and makes war gladly.

But on that day, I suddenly did not care to listen to any gracious, moderating influences. I wanted someone to pay with their lives for this attack on my country.

If you lived through this day, you, like me probably couldn’t concentrate at work, you probably turned on the radio and kept it on if you could, or if you had access to a computer, went out to all the news sites to find out what was really happening in New York. At my office, any time anyone found anything out, they simply called it out for general hearing. I heard that the Pentagon had been attacked, and someone else called out that 20 airplanes had been hijacked and were likely to be crashing into other important places. It reminded me of that verse from the book of Revelation, that in the end times there will be “wars and rumors of wars”. One row over, a woman said “A tower just fell down!” I wondered what tower she meant, thinking of something as flimsy as a radio tower, and not ever imagining that it was an entire skyscraper that had fallen into a pile of rubble and expanding cloud of deadly, noxious dust. Then, we all went out to the building’s lobby which always had CNN playing on television screens in the corners, and we watched over and over video of World Trade Center towers falling. There was no work getting done anywhere. The company closed early and sent us all home.

The first thing I did was to travel to my wife’s office, with almost a compulsion to talk to her face to face, and to see that she was all right. Logically, it made no sense. Her office was even farther away from New York City than mine, in a green, suburban location that was really unlikely to have ever been a target. But, as with moderation, reason also had decided to sit this one out on me.

My wife’s company also decided to close early, so we picked up our daughter Sarah in daycare and went home to await Abby coming home on the bus, and I think we all felt better when we were all home again and the door shut behind us, as if it were a real barrier against this fearful time.

Not long after, Tony, the director of the Starlite Chorale, called up to let me know that our regular Tuesday-night rehearsal was canceled. There was just no way anyone could concentrate on something so seemingly trivial that day as a choral rehearsal. I imagine everybody else was just as happy to stay in their homes behind closed doors, eating dinner and compulsively watching the news. The next day, Tony sent e-mail suggesting we get together at Linden Reformed Church on Friday to rehearse. It was important for us to rehearse, because we were preparing for one of our big shows, a charity benefit for the Asbury Park Lions Club at the end of the month. So that was how we all happened to be in Linden, New Jersey, on the night of September 14, 2001.