I Remember

I've never before posted any kind of blog or remembrance for September 11.  Over the last 8 years, the date mostly just irritates me, because it's SO political.  I have my opinions, yes, but I usually would rather not get in the middle.  Next year makes ten years though...  I'm posting this now just as my statement that I hope there's a little less hate in the world by this time next year.

I took the pictures in this post in January of 2004.

September 11 was no longer so fresh, but it was my first time at "Ground Zero" after the attacks.  I was in New York with Emory students from the Wesley Fellowship; we were on a mission trip, working primarilly in soup kitchens.

On our day off, we decided to visit the site, where "construction" was already underway, before heading down to Battery Park and Ellis Island.  The last time I'd been in viewing distance of the World Trade Center was when I was in middle school; there's a photo of me, stashed away somewhere in my parents' house, standing on the Empire State Building's observation deck with the Twin Towers in the background.

Do you remember where you were on September 11, 2001?  I was sitting in Mr. McCarthy's class, at the very beginning of my senior year of high school.  There's no way to not know something like that will shape your future, when you're just getting ready to head out into the world.  A month later, I was visiting NYU for a prospective students' day...  During an assembly, they announced to us that we had just begun bombing Afghanistan.

I love the above picture of Battery Park.  It's a horrible photo, technically speaking, but the brightness of it, and the rebuilding of the globe, shows the hope that I *wish* were associated with 9/11.  Instead, we have possible Qu'ran burnings as the primary headline this anniversary.