By DAVID EPPS
Pastor

In just a few days the nation will observe the tragedy of Sept. 11. Most people remember where they were and what they were doing when the nation was attacked, and over 3,000 innocent people murdered, by Muslim terrorists. I was at home in front of the computer writing an article when my office manager called and told me to turn on the television.

Like millions of others, I stood unbelieving and transfixed by the scenes unfolding before me. When the tower crashed to the ground, I tried to convince myself that this had to be a disaster movie. Of course, it wasn't. I watched hundreds and hundreds people die before my very eyes. It would get worse before the day was over. When the story fully unfolded, the truth was so much more horrible than a disaster movie could have been.

Over the next days, weeks, and months, the nation was gripped first by shock, then grief, and then by a terrible anger. People in my church lost friends. Carolyn Fjeran, a vital part of our congregation, lost her first cousin, Todd Beamer, on Flight 93.

What to do in the aftermath of such carnage, such senseless horror? Within moments of the tower's collapse, I mounted the American flag on my front porch. By the end of the day, most of the homes in my neighborhood had the Stars and Stripes fluttering in the breeze. Most of those flags are gone now, but not mine. I vowed that the flag would fly until those who committed this slaughter were captured or dead. It is faded now and the gold colored-pole has rusted to a dark brown, but I have kept the vow. On Sept. 11, 2002, I will replace it with a new flag. I will replace it as many times as I need to.

For the first month, I prayed for the victims, their families, and the heroic workers at ground zero. At our church we instituted a Community Service Award and recognized our police officers, firefighters, and a soldier who had served in Bosnia. Then, as grief settled into rage, I angrily prayed privately that God would allow all the terrorists to be killed. King David prayed such a prayer of vengeance in Psalm 109, so I felt justified. Maybe it was the Marine in me that seems to surface, even after all these years, at such a time.

Whenever I had to fly, I would look at all Middle Eastern passengers on my flight as potential adversaries, promising myself that this 50-something, gray-headed, overweight guy would not go out without one last fight. I would stop at businesses for gas and wonder if the owners of the store were "for us or against us." I would pass a mosque and wonder what was really being taught behind its walls. There will be those who judge me and say that such feelings and emotions are un-Christ like. I would not disagree with them. There are those that say that "we asked for it," that, somehow, "we deserved it." Those people, I would say, are idiots and unworthy of any serious response.

A few months later, I wrote an article about the police and firefighters, who were Marine veterans, who had perished in the World Trade Center. That article was published in Leatherneck magazine and received national distribution. A few weeks later, I received a letter of thanks from a widow of one of those brave police officers. He had been about to go off duty but had rushed to the WTC instead. He died going into danger, trying to save lives. She sent me a picture of him standing proudly in his NYPD uniform. I cried.

I try to put things in perspective, especially as a Christian man and leader. I want to care about the Taliban fighters incarcerated in Cuba, but I don't. I want to believe that John Walker was just a good boy who was misguided and deserves a second chance, but I don't. I want to believe that Islam is really a peaceful, benign religion but I don't. President George W. Bush has said that America has come to a firm resolve to eliminate terror. I don't know about that. To me, with the attacks almost a year past, Americans seemed more concerned about the baseball strike and the stock market than about Osama bin Laden, the fighting men in Afghanistan, and Iraq.

This Wednesday, I will participate in the September 11 Commemoration Services in Peachtree City. I will join in a Christian service at Christ Our Shepherd Lutheran Church at noon and will gather with others at the amphitheater that evening for a community observance. Carolyn Fjeran, who has represented the Beamer family well, will be speaking at the commemorative services in Newnan. And, throughout this week and especially on Wednesday, I will try to remember that, for whatever reason, God allowed this tragedy to happen and try to discern what greater purpose all this may serve. But I will also meditate on a verse from the prophet Micah:

Rejoice not against me, O mine enemy: when I fall, I shall arise; when I sit in darkness, the LORD shall be a light unto me. (Micah 7:8)

A correction: In my column in the Citizen Review of Aug. 30, an alert reader e-mailed me and said, "Your article mentioned the name of a church [with a very, very long name] in North Carolina which contained the words 'Seventh-Day'... Then you went on to mention that on Sunday morning there were only six cars in the parking lot. Your article didn't go on to explain why there were only six cars in the parking lot so I am assuming that you were indicating the contrast between the size of the name and the number of worshipers. Let me explain. The words 'Seventh-Day' in the title of the church is significant of the fact that those people worship the Lord on the true Sabbath, otherwise known as Saturday."

The reader is correct in stating that some Christians believe that the "true" Sabbath is Saturday and not Sunday. Certainly the Jewish Sabbath was and is from sunset Friday to sunset Saturday. While more than 99 percent of Christianity throughout history and the earth today believe that Christian worship is to be on "The Lord's Day," or Sunday, I may have misspoken regarding what I observed in North Carolina.

Evidently, either the day was a Saturday and few were present or it was a Sunday and a few were at the church for some other reason. I cannot recall. In any event, the statement was unclear and I apologize. It was a minor possible error but a possible error nevertheless.

[Father David Epps is rector of Christ the King Charismatic Episcopal Church in the Coweta/Fayette County area of south metro Atlanta. He may be contacted at FatherDavidEpps@aol.com or at www.ctkcec.org.]

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