Friday, September 11, 2015

Fourteen Years Later

September 11, 2015

Fourteen years ago today we had but one granddaughter. None of our grandchildren's lives have been shaped by the events of that day. In my youthful days it was Kennedy's assassination, the murders of his brother, and of Martin Luther King, Jr. In my children's day, it was the Challenger disaster and the collapse of the Twin Towers. The dangers to our country haven't diminished. Despite the assurances of our president that ISIS is "JV," they now control vast swaths of the Near East, and Muslim immigration threatens to overwhelm Europe. I am no prophet, and therefore am unable to predict what the future may bring. Some proclaim dire warnings of calamitous events for this month, citing Blood Moons. Date setting has not lost its allure, despite Jesus' clear warnings against it.

Others minimize the dangers, claiming all will be well. Their failure to see the precarious state of secular morality is astounding. Historically speaking, the kind of moral and spiritual decay we are seeing in Western society today has always resulted in national collapse. Me? I'm caught in between, with a biblical perspective that demands I discern the times, not in hopes of finding some sort of escape, but rather that we live more faithfully as we see people more desperate than ever for truth and hope. Our Gospel is for times such as these. Fourteen years ago, thousands of people who went to work in the morning as they had countless times before, thought they were beginning a day much like any other. Instead, they were ushered into eternity, ready or not.

Jesus' admonition is simple: "Be ready." We cannot count on seeing tomorrow, much less our full allotment of "threescore and ten." Readiness doesn't consist of holing away in some monastery, but in daily living in the awareness of our mortality, receiving with joy and grace the life God gives us, and offering all we are and all we do to Christ, in gratitude for his offering of himself for us. I am finding that each day I am in need of forgiveness and mercy, which I receive from the God of all grace. And each day I am called on to extend that same grace and mercy to others. I pray for discernment, wisdom, and courage to do just that, and am grateful tonight to have been given not only one more day, but fourteen more years to live, love, and serve.

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