IS THIS NORMAL?
Four thousand gathered for mid-day
prayer
in a downtown cathedral.
A New York City church,
filled and emptied six times last Tuesday.
The owner of a Manhattan tennis shoe store
threw open his doors and gave running shoes
to those fleeing the towers.
People stood in lines to give blood,
in hospitals to treat the sick,
in sanctuaries to pray for the wounded.
America was different this week.
We wept for people we did not know.
We sent money to families we've never
seen.
Talk-show hosts read Scriptures,
journalists printed prayers.
Our focus shifted from fashion hemlines
and box scores
to orphans and widows and the future of
the world.
We were different this week.
Republicans stood next to Democrats.
Catholics prayed with Jews.
Skin color was covered by the ash of burning
towers.
This is a different country than it was
a week ago.
We're not as self-centered as we were.
We're not as self-reliant as we were.
Hands are out.
Knees are bent.
This is not normal.
And I have to ask the question,
"Do we want to go back to normal?"
Are we being given a glimpse of a new
way of life?
Are we, as a nation,
being reminded that the enemy is not each
other
and the power is not in ourselves
and the future is not in our bank accounts?
Could this unselfish prayerfulness
be the way
God intended for us to live all along?
Maybe this, in his eyes, is the way we are
called to live.
And perhaps the best response to this tragedy
is to refuse to go back to normal.
Perhaps the best response
is to follow the example of Tom Burnett.
He was a passenger of flight 93.
Minutes before the plane crashed
in the fields of Pennsylvania
he reached is wife by cell phone.
"We're all going to die," he told her,
"but there are three of us
who are going to do something about it."
We can do something about it as well.
We can resolve to care more.
We can resolve to pray more.
And we can resolve that, God being our helper,
we'll never go back to normal again.
Quoted from Max Lucado
