09/11/2026
Remembering 9/11
25 years ago this morning, I was a new-ish pastor in my first call to a church in Vermont. I was having a slow morning, and had not gotten out of bed yet when my phone rang. A parishioner called and insisted that I turn on the television...something was happening. I got up and just as I turned on the TV, the second plane slammed into the World Trade Center. Like many of you, I spent the rest of the morning watching in utter horror and confusion as the towers fell, as the Pentagon burned, and as a field in Pennsylvania became the site of tragedy and heroism. We did not learn how to respond to any of this in seminary.
Quickly, it became clear that the world had changed, and that a response was needed. I called the local Red Cross office. It was a tiny two-person outpost, and they were absolutely swamped with phone calls. The person on the phone said that what he really needed was help answering the phone, maybe just for the day. I called two of my stalwart parishioners, you know, the kind who heave to and put their hand on the rope whenever it is needed. These two women spent the next ten days volunteering, answering the phone, fielding inquiries about blood donation and donations of money and supplies, with little to no knowledge or training of how the Red Cross actually operates.
Public vigils were held. Speeches were made. Candles were lit. The clergy in town were all just as afraid and shell-shocked as everyone else, and somehow, the lectionary provided lessons every week that we needed to hear in the midst of the uncertainty, the death, the utter destruction, the fear, and the islamophobia that gripped the nation for weeks and months afterwards.
The world changed that day.
And the only thing that has remained constant in all of this is God's promise that we will not be left comfortless. In the midst of such awful death and destruction. In the socio-political ramifications of the attacks on US soil. In the war that followed, God's promise of eternal presence remained. I fear we have forgotten this message, and that we have squandered the all-too-brief moment of national and global unity that is, I believe, truly God's design for our nation and our world.
Our commemorations of the day the towers fell and the Pentagon burned and a plane full of people said "not us" have become muted. We will ring the bell here at Old Sloop 25 times at noon. Let us never forget the day.
Pastor Jim
O God of all the nations,
we gather on this day of remembrance confessing that as your children,
the events of twenty five years ago have not made us much wiser
or enhanced our willingness to love one another without condition.
Walls still divide, fear still separates, and strangers seem stranger than ever.
Patient and loving God, look with mercy on your children gathered here today.
Nudge us along the narrow way of Jesus,
that we might be healed and become healers and helpers and leaven
on this good earth you have given us to steward. Amen.
(Prayer by the Rev Dr Ronald M Patterson, Bridge Minister for Plymouth UCC in Ft. Collins CO., written for the 20th anniversary of 9/11)
