Ten years on...

Ten years ago - everything changed. I remember going into work that day (a pointless idea, but it seemed at the time to make sense. To do something, anything, felt like my only defense.) I remember getting out of my car in the parking lot at my job and my boss happened to be arriving at the same moment. We looked at each other, our faces blank, and then - without saying a word - walked into the building.

My children were so little, it seemed. One barely a teenager. One a young girl. How do you shield them from such evil?

I sat at my desk the whole day, checking website after website, looking at picture after picture of the devastation.

The world would never be the same. I'd been a bishop about six months at the time.

I tried to imagine what I could say to my little flock to bring comfort. I had no words.

Looking back, I understand now that something shifted in my heart that beautiful September morning. I trusted both less and more. Less because there were such evil men in the world. And more because there were so many more, including 343 firemen/heroes, that were good. That knew the power of good was always - is always - greater than the power of evil.

Peggy Noonan had this insightful piece in The Wall Street Journal on Friday about how 9/11 still lives on today.

And Time magazine published an entire issue devoted to 9/11 this past week. It included interviews and images that brought back all of the hurt, but also the gratitude.

And The Atlantic published these pictures (including the one above) to capture how the world has been affected by that day.

However, of all the powerful images from that day, none affected me more than the one below:

 

Here's the story behind it.

Eyes don't lie.

I love my country.