History Pivots

Friday, September 11, 2026

September 11, 2001 – history pivoted. Geopolitical history, national history, personal history – all of it pivoted.  Such days are rare and not easily forgotten.  And yet, within a generation, maybe two, they are reduced to a few paragraphs in a history book.  The day is vivid in my memory, and yet for so many it is not a memory, it is merely an event they read about.  Although in this day and age, do they read?  I have written about that day many, many times.  So many aspects, so many experiences subsequent.  I could start writing here and thousands of words later still have more thoughts and reflections.  But I think this morning I will focus on generational differences.

One of my more vivid memories is talking to my father that day and him saying he did not think it was as significant as Pearl Harbor.  He was around 10 when Japan tried to cripple our entire Pacific fleet.  For me that was an event I read about, but he lived it – mostly through the radio.  I was irritated with his statement at the time, but now, these decades later I begin to understand.  No matter how much history I learn and know, the visceral impact of such an event does not transmit to subsequent generations.

This fact became truly apparent to me when this week as I wandered through the internet looking at old videos of 9-11.  It was gut-wrenching – most especially videos of the second plane hitting the towers and of the towers collapsing.  Emotions long dormant were stirred to levels I no longer thought possible.  And as I felt them I wondered how to communicate them to those not even born when it happened.  Romans 8:26 took on new meanings – “the Spirit Himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words.”

I have interacted with young people these days that look at that old video and marvel more at its antique analog graininess than the events depicted – events that ended thousands of lives and deeply altered hundreds of thousands more.  I am sure there are those that wonder if the video is even real, or if it is AI generated as their eyeballs are daily confronted with video after video of unreal “reality.”

I wonder if young people today who live their lives through screens and not in genuine relationship could even feel the impact of such an event if it happened to them.  For so many of them, life is not lived, it is viewed.  There is a degree of separation between themselves and reality that may prevent them from being hurt, but also keeps them isolated and deeply alone.

For a period of some months after the events of that day this nation was united in a way that had not been seen since the celebration of its 200th anniversary some 25 years prior.  George W. Bush magnificently managed the geopolitics in the aftermath of that event.  He did a marvelous job of protecting the homeland moving forward.  But he also failed to capture and direct that tremendous unity and energy.  He told us to go back to our lives and leave the War on Terror he declared to the professionals.  He built a wall between us and those events.

And now that wall has been reinforced by isolating technology and politics that seek to personally capitalize on events rather than use events to rally the nation to a cause.

September 11, 2001 was more than a day we were attacked and thousands died.  History pivoted – geopolitical history, national history, personal history – and perhaps most importantly of all, spirits pivoted.  The spirit of patriotism and national pride took hold in so many.  Spirits turned anew to God as they came to understand their fragility and loss.  If we are to remember anything this day, I think that is what we should remember – and what we should endeavor to communicate.  Events fade into history, but spirits go on forever.