9/11: Living in the shadow of a day

Everywhere I turn, I hear Americans talking about living in a post-9/11 world. In Homeland Security, in religion, on the news I hear people mention the fact that we’re living in a post-9/11 world as an excuse for all sorts of things. In airports we all submit to extra searches for the sake of the post-9/11 world. On television and in speeches it’s mentioned as an allusion that somehow we’re all supposed to understand. And we all nod our heads like we do. But I’m not sure that’s always the case. It’s like the Seinfeld episode in which the characters used the phrase, “Yada, yada, yada…”. No matter how the phrase was used, it was assumed that the hearers would understand exactly what was meant.

Too often we use the phrase “Post-9/11 world” without examining or determining exactly what we mean. And our hearers have the same dilemma: in their decoding of our messages, they may be assuming that our, “yada, yada, yada…,” means something different than the, “yada, yada, yada…,” that was intended.

“What is the post-9/11 world?” you may ask. I propound the notion that the post 9/11 world is the same world we were living in before September 11, 2001. I move for a shift of the question: instead of asking what the post-9/11 world is, I suggest we ask, “Who are we following the events of September 11, 2001?”

The sun rose on the morning of September 12, 2001 just as it had on September 10, 2001. Death and poverty were part of the world (and a reality for many) on September 10. Hope and joy were part of the world (and a reality for some) on September 12. In fact, on September 11, 2001; 35,000 children from our planet died due to hunger and preventable disease. When the day ended, they lay alongside America’s 3,000 dead and were mourned just the same. Though it may have felt like it, America’s pain wasn’t the only pain felt that day.

I can hear you. You’re saying, “But something did change that day. Everything was not the same when we woke up the next morning.” I agree. For many, the next morning was like waking up and realizing their nightmares were still playing. But it wasn’t the nature of the world that changed; it was us that changed. It was America, our culture, our sensibilities. They awoke with us the next morning either raw or numb. It was as if the world had lost its innocence.

But September 11 wasn’t the day the world lost its innocence, as many have painted it to be. It was the day many realized we’re not innocent. Whether by superfluous distraction or misguided thinking, we were missing this fact: innocence hasn’t been ours since Eve first took the fruit. And whether we like or don’t even think about it, we’re left holding the bag for Adam’s misstep. We’re culpable for that loss of innocence, for in Adam the entire human race fell.

We don’t have the blood of the victims of the September 11 attacks on our hands. But that doesn’t mean there isn’t plenty of blood to go around. We remain without our innocence, and to stay our deserved obliteration Jesus took upon himself the wrath of God. If we accept our membership in the human race, along with the fallen-ness that necessarily attends, we must someday square with this idea of culpability or lack of innocence. But the blood of Jesus shed for us doesn’t have to remain on our hands: its saving power can cover our sin and shame if we let it.

In this post-9/11 world, we do have a choice: we must all decide how we’ll handle this question of Jesus’ blood. Even failing to decide is defaulting in one direction. And the question remains: Who will we choose to be following the events of September 11, 2001?