The Perfecting of Our Faith...

For a second, the cynic in me was immediately suspicious at the commencement of the weeklong coverage of the tenth anniversary of the September 11th terrorist attacks.

“That damn sensationalistic, ratings-driven, 24-hour news cycle will pimp anything to its advantage,” I irritatingly thought as I saw coverage on every major network including two children’s stations.

Yet, the truth is that I didn’t want to go back to that day. I didn’t want to remember one of the most sorrowful days I have experienced in my life. I had no desire to conjure up the feelings of helplessness; fear, anger, and uncertainty that I felt as a 19 year-old college student seeing the events of that day unravel as I sat alone for hours on my fake leather couch.

But more than anything, for the memories of those that passed on that day, I didn’t want to spend a week asking myself questions that have no easy answer.

The fact is that September 11, 2001 is symbolic of the quintessential philosophical and spiritual conundrum that I have battled with my entire adult life, “Why does God allow bad things to happen?”

I won’t spend time recreating the imagery that will forever be embedded in the minds and hearts of all who witnessed the events of that day. The planes. The fire. The buildings. The people.

We all remember those things.

However, what I will say is that in the time that has passed after 9/11 where I have experienced personal loss of my own and witnessed senseless loss all around me, my journey to understand the unimaginable begins with the question that I have asked God numerous times and in numerous ways.

“God/Jesus/Holy Spirit…WHAT IN THE SAMUEL L. JACKSON IS GOING ON? Are you there? Do you really exist? Why did this happen? How could this happen? How can you expect us to keep faith in the face of these things?”

Initially, my philosophical mind always takes me back to a story that I read in college named, “The Ones Who Walked Away From Omelas,” by Ursula Leguin. This short story, tells of an utopian society that existed with the prerequisite that one soul suffered. All of the citizens within this society, when they came of age, were told of the suffering endured by the one soul and why it was necessary to preserve their way of life. Similarly, in some ways, I feel as if the safety that we have appreciated in the aftermath of that day were paid for by the lives of those who perished in the towers and in the subsequent wars.

But my own philosophical beliefs only take me so far. So I turn back to God and again ask, “Why?”
Then I am reminded of the conversation that God had with Job – a faultless man – who had lost everything dear to him as a test of his faith. Job, finally at his breaking point asked God why he had allowed him to suffer such great loss, and God responded with the following question:

“Where were you when I laid the Earth’s Foundation?” (Job 28, v4)

As a child, I was always uncomfortable with this reply as it seemed to be very “Suge Knight-like” of God. A cold response – it appeared to lack the compassion, grace, and mercy that I had come to consider as attributes of God. It wasn’t until I became an adult and experienced my own loss that I understood what God was conveying to Job. Trust is what God seeks from us – even in our darkest of hours.

As people of faith, our existence rests on the belief of a higher power that maintains perfect order in a world of chaos. Often unequipped to sort out the matters of our own lives, we persistently aim to trust that there is a higher power that can maintain fairness, peace, joy, and righteousness in the world in ways that we, individually nor collectively, cannot. It is this persistent fight to actively choose faith, to actively believe in the “substance of things hoped for and the evidence of things not seen” in spite of the evil that often seems so pervasive around us, which encapsulate the very reason why we exist. Like many of have come before us and have suffered tremendously, faith is rarely easy. It constantly requires of us things that we would normally choose not to give.

I believe that the perfection of our faith is the sole purpose of our existence.

I am “one of those” Christians who believes that most of us who are people of faith, whatever you deem your faith to be, are praying to the same God. I believe that whether you live to enjoy eternity in Heaven, or to live in Paradise with 72 virgins, or to have peace in Nirvana, that God ultimately gives us the desires of our souls as long as we live in accordance with his will.

Because of this belief, I trust that each of the souls that perished on that faithful day, ten years ago, are in a much better place.

Some are enjoying the views on the beaches of an endless shore.
Some are resting in the peace of a never-ending white light.
Some may have reentered into our lives through the life of a newborn child.

I simply trust with all of my heart, that on the anniversary of that day – there is no need to remember the suffering.

Like many who senselessly passed from this Earth before September 11, 2001 and the many that have passed afterwards, the best way to pay tribute to the lives of those that we have lost is to live. Live courageously. Live fearlessly. Live passionately. Live faithfully.