09/11/2026
A Letter from Rev. Thomas on the 25th Anniversary of 9/11
Grace and Peace to you, my siblings!
25 years ago, our world was changed. Indeed, we are living in a world that has been shaped and re-shaped by the deadly and deliberate attacks in New York City and Washington DC. I was five years old on 9/11. I had no real sense of the magnitude of what had happened. I’d never been to New York, nor DC. I did, however, have a newspaper with pictures of NYFD firemen on my wall. I knew that those guys were heroes. For a time, I wanted to be a fireman too.
In March, while visiting a friend in New York, we went to the observation deck of Freedom Tower, which sits in the footprint of the original World Trade Center complex. It’s a gripping experience. The construction of that tower was meant, in some way, to show that this nation was unbowed in the face of terror. And even so, there is the reality that one is in the shadow of great grief. In the span of a morning, the world was forever changed.
There are countless stories of sacrifice, heroism, and hope in the face of the unimaginable:
-- Folks who carried people downstairs, and then went back inside to do it again
--Mariners who became part of a water evacuation larger than Dunkirk…
--The folks on Flight 93, who stormed the cockpit and crashed their plane, after they were hijacked too…
--The people of Gander, Newfoundland, Canada, who opened their homes for a week, caring for those who were on flights that had been diverted there…
--The people who reconciled themselves with their fate, and still made sure to call their loved ones…
--And so many more.
I’ve told you before that I try to live my life in a sort of response to a midrash that suggests that angels counseled God against making us. Yet, God chose to do so anyway. I have to believe that if those first angels saw how ordinary people showed up on 9/11, they would turn to God and say: Thank you for insisting on creation.
As I reflect on this solemn day, I must also note my lament for the countless innocent people in this country and around the world who have been killed, forced to migrate, abused, and made to suffer in an effort to defeat terror. May we acknowledge their pain and the deep unfairness that they have paid a price for crimes they did not commit.
The world we live in today is less trusting, less cohesive, more fearful of the “other,” and we are witnessing a distressing rise in xenophobia and Islamophobia. We must do all we can to combat the advance of such rhetoric.
As Americans, we will never be more than the sum of our parts. I pray that we might commit ourselves to the hard work we must do here at home, so that we might more fully live into the promise of a country that really is out of many, one.
As Congregationalists, we are called to do what reasonably we might, in our corner of the world, to build a more just world for all. Many of you are doing that work every single day. I know that will continue.
In the face of great terror and unimaginable loss, God calls us to be servants in the service of the whole human family; to resist the powers of evil; and, to join Jesus in sharing the grace of baptism & the reconciliation of communion.
I pray that this 25th anniversary of 9/11 might spark in us a renewed commitment to responding to that call.
May peace fill our hearts, our world, and our universe,
Rev. Thomas
25 years ago, our world was changed. Indeed, we are living in a world that has been shaped and re-shaped by the deadly and deliberate attacks in New York City and Washington DC. I was six years old on 9/11.
