9/11/26
Remember the movie, “It’s a Wonderful Life?” George is told that every time a bell rings, an angel gets its wings. Twenty-five years ago, the angels of heaven were quite busy guiding souls into their new lives after this life. A lot of wings were granted for these heavenly escorts.
None of that is biblical or theologically sound. Yet, there is something comforting in a clarion sound to remember the lives lost to this world. And to imagine the faces of angels holding the departing souls with tender loving care and to imagine some still working as people continue to die as a result of the 9/11 terror aftermath. The faces of the kindly angels receiving new wings for bringing new life out of a human tragedy somehow meant remembering the faces of the living, not just death’s grimace, remembering light, hope, faith and love.
And so I chose, as my personal act of remembrance today, apart from the devotional liturgy written for an opening of the sanctuary, to ring the church bell at the significant visible moments of the day.
This meant having the timeline in front of me. Consistently seeing the attack lined out and the blank spaces between marked moments. The blanks began to be filled in with a different perspective of the flow of time. I began to recall my personal conversations while watching replays, listening to commentators try to piece together the bits of information they got, seeing new footage of people around the sites of destruction. The blanks began to be filled in with the living as it became apparent unlikely there were survivors in the growing rubble.
And yet! Twenty people were found alive. The faces of the angels had become the rescuers, the ones under the fire hats, hard hats, military search and rescue, medical garb, EMT uniforms, and wearing suits covered in ash, everyday clothing augmented with dirtied hands pulling piles of metal debris, all becoming suddenly still and quiet to listen for any voice that might be a survivor. People exhausted from fighting fires, from bringing water to the wounded and the working, from creating safe spaces from terrors yet unknown.
The gaps began to fill with imagined experiences of travelers on hijacked planes, on other flights as news began to fill the skies, in rooms where military and local first responders had to initiate protocols for emergencies, into the classrooms where millions of children, including my own, were in lock-down having never experienced the nuclear drills of my own childhood.
There’s a huge gap between 9/11/01 and today. It, too, is filled with people whose names I will never know. They have leaned in when a friend whispered their pain. They have pursued help for the workers suffering the long-term illnesses from the residue of materials and tended, perhaps mended the broken hearts filled with emotional refuse of suffering. They have provided physical therapy and chemotherapy and blood.
They have raised orphaned children, and soothed their own.
They have cared for aging parents left behind when children’s lives became dust.
The gaps filled with faces of those who would be judge and jury with fury, sometimes diplomatic, sometimes militant, often vengeful, always seeking retribution for what could never be redeemed.
The gaps filled with those who have offered innumerable tirades…
and countless prayers.
If angels are messengers of the Divine, with both good news and warnings, proclaiming peace where there is none and declaring judgement where warfare never brings well-fare, then an uncountable legion of angels walks among us.
They may not get wings, but surely halos will be bestowed with the words, “well done,” when the trumpet sounds, by and by.
To you, the nation is indebted and I am grateful.
I ring the bell for you today as well.
Timeline:
9/11/2021
8:46 am Flight 11 – North Tower attacked
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9:03 am Flight 175- South Tower attacked
9:37 am Flight 77 – Pentagon attacked
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9:59 am South Tower collapses
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10:03 am Flight 93 crashes in Pennsylvania
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10:28 am North Tower collapses
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5:20 pm WTC Building 7 collapses
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9/12/2021
Approximately 1:30 pm, after 27 hours trapped, Genelle Guzman found alive and rescued from the rubble of the North Tower, the last of 20 survivors rescued, all from “Ground Zero.”
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9/11/2026
Specialists are still conducting studies seeking DNA from remains of unidentified victims and in August 2026 identified the 1654th victim of the attacks. Forty percent of the victims remain unidentified.
Mayor Mamdani and NYC Council release files regarding what the city learned about the toxins in the air and on surfaces following the attacks. Advocates still seek medical care and support for people suffering long-term illnesses and disease resulting from those toxins.
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Photo by Jerson Martins on Pexels.com
Photo by Saeed Ahmed Abbasi on Pexels.com
bevfriedlander 