Boot

Having grown up in the cotton fields of West Tennessee, in between the shadows of Memphis and Nashville, it probably doesn’t surprise you to know that I’m a pretty big fan of country music.

It’s real, honest, to-the-point and full of “poor man’s poetry.”

Only the hardest of heart could fail to shed a tear while listening to George Jones whine his way through “He Stopped Loving Her Today.” Only the cold and uncaring could fail to feel the pain and desperation of Merle Haggard’s “Tonight, the Bottle Let Me Down.”

Right?

OK, maybe that’s a stretch. I realize that not everyone shares my occasional need for the “down home,” and that even when they do, not everybody’s down home includes George Jones.

Fair enough.

But I bet that since September 11th, 2001, almost everybody, country music lover or not, has been exposed to Toby Keith’s, “Courtesy of the Red, White and Blue.” The song is also known as, and I am not making this up, “The Angry American.”

In case you’ve missed it, let me quote some particulars from the lyrics:

Justice will be served
And the battle will rage
This big dog will fight
When you rattle his cage
And you’ll be sorry that you messed with
The U.S. of A.
`Cause we`ll put a boot in your ---
It`s the American way.

Speaking for all the American good ol’ boys out there, Mr. Keith got in touch with his righteous indignation. And why not?

Revenge sells.

And it feels great, after all.

What self-respecting person doesn’t want to put a boot in somebody’s anatomy when you’ve just been sucker-punched in the gut?

Trust me, I've wanted to put a 9/11 sized "boot" somewhere for the last five years.

I remember what I felt on that Tuesday five years ago as though the events happened just this morning. I was at my office in the church where I served as Associate Pastor at that time.

My plan was to spend a few minutes attending our weekly staff meeting before getting on I-20 from Augusta to a later appointment at Emory in Atlanta.

Just before I went out the door of my office, my cell phone rang and I picked it up.

“Hey babe,” she said, “something’s happened at the World Trade Center in New York, and it’s really weird. They’re saying a plane hit it. They think it must have been a small plane, some kind of mistake, but it’s really on the news, just wanted you to know.”

That meeting never happened, as many other staff members had received similar updates from their spouses. Pretty soon, everybody just wanted to find a radio or tv.

I figured I had better hurry up and get on the road.

A few miles out of town, I stopped to pump some gas, and my phone rang again. “They hit the other tower” she said. “They think it’s terrorism.”

Soon, another call, as the first tower came down. “It fell down,” she said. “That can’t be,” I argued. “It’s impossible. The World Trade Center cannot fall down. It just can’t. Do you know how many people work there?”

Denial can be a powerful thing, and in that moment, I knew what I was hearing just couldn’t physically be true.

Amazingly, maybe because I didn't know what else to do, and because I was still living in a “pre-9/11 world,” I kept on heading down that highway toward Atlanta.

When the second tower fell, and as reports of the attack on the Pentagon came over the radio, I can tell you that I felt a rage unlike any that I have known before.

The pain was personal. The anger was, too. Slowly, mile by mile, a new reality dawned in my heart and mind. “There are people in the world who want to kill me. They want to kill my family…just because we’re Americans.”

There’s no coming back from that sort of shift in reality. The old place just isn’t there anymore, for any of us.

I remember stopping at an exit in the open Georgia countryside, just east of Metro Atlanta. I needed to listen, and really give focused attention to the radio reports, and to try and clear my head for the rest of the drive. As I walked into the gas station just off the interstate, I paused to watch the nervous cashier.

He was of obvious Middle-Eastern descent, and he was working quietly and efficiently, head down…saying nothing. I can’t imagine what he felt at that moment. There were about 20 angry “Toby Keiths” in that store, including me. On 9/11/2001, his feelings were about the least of my concern.

I managed to make my meeting at Emory, although the whole campus seemed like a war zone because it is home to the Centers for Disease Control. On the way home, my much beloved mazda pick up truck gave up the ghost and stranded me on the side of the road, a lethal crack having formed in an old cylinder.

Finally, I managed to make my return to the church, dropped off by a tow truck, and late for the impromptu 9/11 service in which I was supposed to participate.

I found my wife, and stood with her at the back of the room. Thousands were dead. No one knew how many for sure.

Husbands…wives…fathers…mothers…grandparents…sons…daughters. All innocent. All lost. Perhaps for the first time in my life, I knew what it meant to have a true “enemy.”

That’s when it happened. Together, the congregation began to recite the prayer that Jesus taught his disciples.

The words caught in my throat.

“Forgive us our trespasses…as we forgive those who…”

I was not ready to forgive those who had “trespassed against us” on that day.

And yet, the prayer had not changed. Jesus’ appeal to his Father was the same on 9/11 as it had been on 9/10. It was the prayer I was challenged to join.

I don’t think I even really wanted to mean them, but I joined the congregation and prayed those words out loud. These five years later, that act of worship remains fresh in my mind.

9/12/2001 brought a new challenge for me, and for all of us. As a pastor, my job became one of helping Christian people understand their faith and their world in light of the previous day’s events.

That task hasn’t stopped yet, and it likely never will.

As I watched the commemorative events and the thousand documentaries that aired this weekend and this past Monday, I heard a new term for the first time.

One cable news anchor spoke of the “9/11 Generation,” applying the term to all who were between Jr. High and college age on the day of the attacks. Basically, these are the children of the 80’s. All of the characteristics that define this generation have yet to be seen.

I like to think Christianity might have a voice in that conversation.

I don’t simply mean cultural Christianity, in the sense of the West vs. East clash-of-cultures showdown with Islam that the folks on TV like to frame.

I mean the Christianity of the heart that moves believers, one-by-one, to carry the cross of Christ --- listening to his voice, praying his prayers and walking in his steps.

We are called to live and work for justice, and surely all those who perpetuated the atrocities of 9/11 must be held to account.

But vengeance, anger and resentment will eat us alive if it’s allowed to take root in our hearts. That kind of hatred will work like a parasite, draining us of all that makes us holy and leaving us unable to respond to the challenges of faith in a new world.

Jesus’s people pray. For their enemies.

Somehow, they believe that there can be peace, and they trust God to lead them toward it. They forgive those who need forgiveness for vile and personal transgressions, just as surely as we need forgiveness from the Father who loves us.

Nobody said that’s an easy thing…but Jesus has said it’s the right thing.

Toby Keith’s “boot in your backside” song wasn’t the only pop country response to 9/11.

An alternative, very different country song emerged as well.

Newnan, Georgia’s own Alan Jackson wrote a song that’s a little different, called “That September Day.” It says:

Where were you when the world stopped turning
that September day
Teaching a class full of innocent children
Driving down some cold interstate
Did you feel guilty cause you're a survivor
In a crowded room did you feel alone
Did you call up your mother and tell her you love her
Did you dust off that Bible at home
Did you open your eyes and hope it never happened
Close your eyes and not go to sleep
Did you notice the sunset for the first time in ages
Speak to some stranger on the street
Did you lay down at night and think of tomorrow
Go out an buy you a gun
Did you turn off that violent old movie you're watchin'
And turn on 'I Love Lucy' re-runs
Did you go to church and hold hands with some stangers
Stand in line and give your own blood
Did you just stay home and cling tight to your family
Thank God you had somebody to love

Chorus:
I’m just a singer of simple songs
I’m not a real political man
I watch CNN but I’m not sure I can tell you
The difference in Iraq and Iran
I know Jesus and I talk to God
And I remember this from when I was young
Faith hope and love are some good things he gave us
And the greatest is love

And the greatest is love

I know the world was complicated and full of brokenness long, long before September 11th, 2001. We’re simply much more aware of that brokenness and complication now that it has come into our own homes. Followers of Christ must continue to find their way forward into the future.

No doubt, I’m still angry. I think we all are.

The hurting, human side of all of us still wants revenge against those who caused the pain.

That vengeance isn’t ours. It’s God’s.

My prayer and hope is that the people of Christ will work for justice, not vengeance.

That we will be used by God for peace, and we will help define the world that is to come. There is still much difficult work that must be done, and my prayer is that we don't lose our souls while we do it, and we should pray especially for those who are serving our country in Iraq, Afghanistan and other dangerous places.

I pray that Christian people can feel the courage of our convictions, and that we can find our voice. I also pray that we don't lose the God-given gift of listening, and that we'll always do the hard work of critical self-reflection.

Maybe it’s a little naïve and simplistic, but I’ve got it on pretty good authority:

Faith, hope and love are some good things he gave us…but the greatest is love.

It never fails. Even on the darkest of days.

Grace and Peace,
Adam

IN HONOR OF THOSE LOST ON 9/11/2001

"For the Falling Man"
by Annie Farnsworth, in Bodies of Water

I see you again and again
tumbling out of the sky,
in your slate-grey suit and pressed white shirt.
At first I thought you were debris
from the explosion, maybe gray plaster wall
or fuselage but then I realized that people were leaping.
I know who you are, I know
there's more to you than just this image
on the news, this ragdoll plummeting—
I know you were someone's lover, husband,
daddy. Last night you read stories
to your children, tucked them in, then curled into sleep
next to your wife. Perhaps there was small
sleepy talk of the future. Then,
before your morning coffee had cooled
you'd come to this; a choice between fire
or falling.
How feeble these words, billowing
in this aftermath, how ineffectual
this utterance of sorrow. We can see plainly
it's hopeless, even as the words trail from our mouths
—but we can't help ourselves—how I wish
we could trade them for something
that could really have caught you.