The stories we tell on this day …

This day. It appears on the calendar out of the sweltering blue of summer and amidst the slow push into fall, breaking the patterned chaos with its remembering. Those crystal clear details of 18 years ago; how the room smelled, where you were standing, how incredibly blue the sky was, whose arm you grabbed, and the sound of the voice of the first person who asked you what was going on. You remember. And every year you marvel at the vivid scenes that replay on demand the instant someone asks you where you were on September 11, 2001.

For many of our kids, though, this day conjures up no memories. Only through photos and replays on the news do they even get what we mean when we mourn this day each year. And it looks so unreal to them, like a scene from a movie. My own boys have spent years asking me about it. But no matter how many times I discuss it with them, I am never sure if I am doing it right.

I always start with the details, though, my details. Because I want it to become real to them.

And on this day more than any other, we were all united in those mundane everyday details, the ones that got shattered when evil erupted in the midst of them.

So every year, I tell my boys the story of my 2nd-period class, the one packed with middle school guys, who gallivanted into my classroom that morning. They were overjoyed about a movie I had promised. I include details about the sun pouring through the open window in the back of the room and my perched position atop an empty desk where I was frantically using a pencil to reel crinkled tape back into the VHS version of The Outsiders (they never get this!). And about how just as I had almost successfully salvaged the old tape, a student turned out the lights and another switched on the TV.

And I explain that these rowdy middle-schoolers had all read an entire novel and passed my test; so this movie was their reward. As I tell the story, I can still hear the screeching of those desks legs on the polished classroom floor; the kids trying to create the perfect view. And I can still feel how that video felt in my hands as I clutched it, nearly fixed when the picture became clear on the TV. The picture of  New York City with smoke billowing out of one of the Trade Center buildings silenced my usually boisterous class. And suddenly the air was filled with stumbling voices of astonished news reporters.

I tell about how I dropped the tape to the floor as we witnessed, on live TV, that plane fly directly into the second tower. The gasps and the choruses of Mrs. Sain, what was that? What’s going on? are as real in my head today as they were 18 years ago. I can see the face of each child, the placement of the desks, and smell the scent of sweaty boys mixed with September wind blowing in through the open window.  And even after all these years of hearing it, these boys of mine will still ask me what happened next.

My kids struggle to understand how little information we had, how we tried to listen and piece together the what and the why. But how we couldn’t, because on that day no one could. And so instead, we sat and stared, unable to believe that what we had seen was real.

“And that’s when the knock came, right?” my oldest always remembers this part. “The principal came and told you to turn off the TV, right?” I nod, remembering the knot that had formed in my throat when I saw Dr. Chandler’s face at my door. “Go back to teaching, Leigh. Turn it off. No one knows what’s going on. The best thing you can do is to go back to doing what you know how to do.” I remember thinking that I did not know how to do anything; not after what we had just seen.

But I had to. We all had to.

I walked back into my classroom bolstered by a strength that was not my own, discarded the broken tape, silently put the desks back in rows, took out a Literature book and began to teach.

But what about the bad guys? Who went to go get the bad guys? My boys always wonder about this.

I tell them that lots of people did. Lots of brave, selfless, well-trained people went to fight the bad guys that day. But I did not. I did what millions of the rest of us had to do on that day. I leaned into God’s grace and taught reading, explained verb tenses, opened jammed lockers, collected homework papers, spoke calmly and loved on lots of students. That’s how I fought the bad guys.

You see, evil flew in and exploded all over our country that day. And in those moments we all united in our response against the bad guys by standing and doing good in our own places.

Memories of that day still break my heart. But this story-telling is about more than just this day. You see, my boys, your girls, and all of our kids need to hear the truth that lies under the surface of this day. It is a truth we don’t often point out to them.

They need to know that yes, there is evil out there.

There is loud evident evil that announces itself by crashing planes into buildings, but there is also a quiet slow-moving evil that comes silently and seeps into our days.

It tempts us to stop trusting in God’s goodness, to worry only about ourselves, and to love less those who are different. And it is equally as dangerous as the evil that incinerates buildings.

Because, I tell my boys, there is this battle being fought each day right on the front lines of our own hearts. As I say that, I know that it is weaponry these boys are picturing. So I go on. The only way to fight this battle is with God’s armor. He freely gives it, but we have to put it on. Every. Day. “So that when the day of evil comes you may be able to stand your ground, and after you have done every good thing to stand” (Ephesians 6:13).

It’s odd, really, how the Bible says we are to fight this evil, the big loud evil and slow silent one. It simply tells us to stand.  In the face of it, and in the memories of it. The Bible says we are to stand and “pray in the Spirit on all occasions with all kinds of prayers and requests” (Ephesians 6:18).  That’s it. Stand our ground and pray and trust that God’s goodness is bigger.

So, today on this Patriot’s Day, tell your story. As Alan Jackson asks in his famous song about this day, “Where were you when the world stopped turning that September day?” Tell someone. Explain the remembering, and pray hard for those who suffered much on this day. Remind the next generation about the millions of people across our great nation who stood firm in their little corners of the world and did what good they knew how to do in the face of a great evil. And remember that when we do stand in these hard to explain places and face evil we can’t comprehend, we are never standing alone.

“So do not fear for I am with you, do not be dismayed for I am your God. I will strengthen you and help you and I will uphold you with my righteous right hand” (Isaiah 41:10).

This day and every day.