Congregational Corner: When the world changed

By Rev. Jordan B. Davis (M.Div.‘14)
Congregational Corner

Seventeen years ago, our country was shaken to the core as we felt the trembling of collapsing buildings everywhere we were. Our reality shifted, never to be the same again. In the blink of an eye, we came together just as strongly as we were ripped apart.

I reflect on that day spent with my grandparents while I was tracked out of school. I struggled to understand what was going on. I was in 8th grade and knew enough to know this wasn’t good, but also was aware that I didn’t know enough. In the following months, I watched with friends as the world we were only just beginning to understand faded away, as the unity we celebrated dissolved, and as finger pointing, fear, and blame filled the soundbites on the television.

My teenage years were shaped by the immediate responses to the events of 9/11. I vaguely remember a world where everyone was welcome and lived as the neighbors I had learned about in Sunday school. Mostly though, I still struggle to understand how and why the unity in the United States collapsed and turned to fear and hatred so quickly.

As I sit here and remember today, I also struggle with the idea that my youth do not remember. In fact, fewer than five were even alive when the towers fell and brought our unity down with them. I realize that my youth do not have the memories of a united country and instead only know this fear and hatred that has crept in ever since that first airplane struck the tower.

I wonder if our youth hear our tired cries for justice and unity and think that we have given up. I wonder what their vision of unity is, having grown up in such a broken world? I pray that they come to know a world where we do not fear those around us and instead live as neighbors, no longer pointing to the past as an example but living it in the present.

Maybe my memory of what our country used to be is naive and skewed — again, I was only in 8th grade. My heart breaks that those younger than me likely cannot even pull on those naive thoughts to imagine such a place.

God calls us to live as neighbors, to love one another, and to share grace with one another. Somewhere in the back of my memories, I do believe we were once on the verge of such a world. Today I pray that we can all find those memories of days forgotten and strive to live in such a way that we bring back that unity of support and love for neighbor. I pray that our children will grow up in a world where they don’t have to look to a history book to know that even for a brief time, we acted as the Body of Christ. I pray for and long for the day when we can say that we are not only the United States of America, but the United Kingdom of God.

Alumna Jordan B. Davis is associate pastor for youth and young adults at Kirk of Kildaire Presbyterian Church in Cary, North Carolina, and editor of Congregational Corner.

Photo by Axel Houmadi on Unsplash