For a While (9/11)

My mind tired of working through Hebrew flashcards and somewhere just south of Batesville, Mississippi, I put the cards on the empty passenger seat and turned the radio on. The little blue Nissan I drove that day had only an old fashioned push button radio, but instantly I was bombarded with the Twin Towers struck, the plane down in a field somewhere, the Pentagon attacked, and the White House on fire. Yes, I later learned that the White House report was erroneous, but that is the what I heard that morning.

My mind wobbled. I turned off I 55 and stopped at a gas station in Batesville. I went into the bathroom and heard two men come in. They were chatting about golf. To talk of such a trivial matter as that at a time like this, I thought, meant they had no clue as to what was happening in New York City and Washington, DC. I was almost giddy with the idea that I would be the first one to inform them. Still, I don't know whether or not to be ashamed of this or not. I don't know why I felt that way. The whole affair had me reeling and I couldn't wait to tell them.

Back on the interstate, my ear was glued to the radio as I heard the DJ talking live with someone in New York.

"The tower just fell down."

"What do you mean?" the DJ asked.

"It fell down."

"What do you mean it fell down."

"It fell down. It collapsed."

"What do you mean it collapsed?"

"It fell down."

He didn't get it and neither did I. The DJ couldn't comprehend the words he was hearing.

When I reached my destination, Mid-America Baptist Theological Seminary in Germantown, Tennessee, I flew straight upstairs as fast as my feet would carry me to the Doctoral Studies Room. This was our little cave of scholarship. As usual, my fellow students were engrossed in reading books, writing papers, prepping for class. I let it fly out of my mouth that the USA was under attack, the Twin Towers both had fallen by then, the Pentagon was on fire as was the White House itself. No one paid me the least bit of attention. That's the way it was when we were PhD students. We lived the a little cocoon of a world, a universe of Hebrew words and theological arguments and scholars no one else had ever heard of. We couldn't be bothered. But for a while I was. Bothered. Drawn out. Shaken.

            Yet once more I shake not the earth only, but also heaven.
                                                                  Hebrews 12:26b KJV