9-11

Who doesn't remember when JFK was assassinated. I was literally "up a tree," a young pastor and was helping one of my older parishioners shake the pecans out of a tree. Another parishioner, who was inside, ran out and shouted, "the President has been shot." I immediately went home. 

Early on the morning of September 11, I was lounging  around our place in Mill Valley, California when my younger daughter called from Tulsa and said, "Dad, turn on the TV?" The odyssey began. Our lives would never be the same again. 

Watching the three memorials recently, I thought: "With these memorials, what really are we really doing?" First of all, I think we are trying to add meaning to a senseless act that through no fault of their own, these brothers, sisters, mothers, fathers--relatives of all sorts, ended up as part of this tragic story. None ever dreamed that this is the way their lives would end. Keeping their memories alive is our task. The job of every American.