When the Planes Came

Sixty-seven years ago I was living with my family in Honolulu, Hawaii. My father, an Army doctor, was stationed at Tripler Army Hospital. One brother was a student at Princeton in New Jersey, and one was a senior at Roosevelt High School in Honolulu. I was a third-grader at Lincoln Elementary School. My mother, an accomplished pianist, kept everything in working order at home while the rest of us studied and worked. Life was pretty much routine for this military family, living in a rented house in the city rather than choosing to live in Army quarters on base.

In December of 1941, however, events changed the course of our lives forever. Japanese planes attacked Pearl Harbor and our country’s entry into World War II began a new way of living for our family and for our nation. Only 23 years earlier “the war to end all wars” had been fought and peace treaties were signed. Yet the peace did not hold, and we experienced once more the terror and destruction from skies which were no longer friendly.

Seven years ago our country again knew the shock of terror and destruction from the skies. Two planes crashed into the Twin Towers in New York City, one into the Pentagon and one into a field in Pennsylvania, all of those events tied to one major plot by those from other places. Once again our nation was at war, and battles fought far from our shores would affect our way of life. It was not the first time we were involved in war since the end of WWII. In all likelihood it won’t be the last time we know war. Generations of us have lived more years with war than with peace, each time with some hopeful ones believing that wars will some day become only history, when peace reigns permanently. We still wait and hope for that day.

As we take time this week to remember the pain and loss experienced on September 11, 2001, we also become aware of the necessity to make peace a priority. Some must wonder if God blesses our battles or if God weeps at the devastation wrought upon this good creation. The psalmists found their expression of sorrow and need for God’s intervention in what we label the “psalms of lament.” These have been the cries of God’s people for thousands of years. In addition to those biblical psalms, many new psalms express the laments of later times. After our country’s 9-11 experience, I wrote this:

Lament
psalm for September 11, 2001

When the planes came to the buildings,
When fire and flesh converged,
Were you there, Lord,
When permanent became impermanent?
Were you there at all?
When all came crashing down, O God, were you
There in the midst of chaos, of unspeakable evil?
Did you gather up your lost and broken?
Did you carry them in your bosom, kissing them,
Holding the ashes of their souls?

Let your fierce love meet our disbelief.
Let your hand hold us up from this earth’s danger.
May our shouts of anger turn into hosannas.
Come to our broken spirits and make us whole
In your peace.