Peace and Swords

"I come not to bring peace, but a sword," Jesus said to His disciples.

This verse is perhaps more relevant than it has ever been before. This past weekend we marked a devastating milestone in our nation's history. Nine years ago on Sept. 11, our lives changed forever.

With the passing of time, the images that we see on TV and the Web of that cloudless morning are more scarce. Public ceremonies were have become less elaborate in recent years. For some Americans, it's gone back to being just another day. My baby cousins will grow up hearing about 9/11, likely feeling detached and unmoved by something that came before their time, as WWII or Vietnam did for me.

There is a serious danger in treating it like just another holiday on the calendar, in my opinion. My Rowan planner that I bought from the bookstore tells me in an almost cheery way that the 11th is "Patriot Day." How quaint.

Personally, it will be impossible to forget even a minute of that day in 7th grade. My uncle is a retired civil engineer who spent much of his career working on the 97th floor of the World Trade Center's North Tower. That morning, as I watched the tower crumble on live television during my third period class, I believed that I had just watched him die along with so many others. My uncle is the most punctual person in the world. He is never, ever late.

Through God's great mercy, he was helping my cousin move into her classroom on 9/11 as she began her teaching career in Newark. He watched his tower fall from on board a later train. Had he been on time that day...well.

What did we learn from it all, nine years later? If you turned on the news for 30 seconds over the last few weeks, you'll know: a proposed Muslim community center in the area has drawn intense emotions from all sides. It's now been dubbed the "Gronud Zero mosque" (though in reality it's a few blocks away) and represents to some a sort of blasphemy toward what for many Americans has become holy ground.

We see that reflected in other places, too, like the quiet Tennessee town that told Muslims building a mosque in the community that they were unwelcome by burning the place down.

And of course, there is Pastor Terry Jones, who tells his small congregation that the Christian answer to the growing influence of Islam is simple: burn the Koran, and do it on 9/11. It took a slew of global religious and political superstars to talk him out of it, and only at the last minute.

In 2001, America banded together as it never had before, because we were all wounded. Yet today, it seems like we've forgotten. Our cries for justice and peace have now become slurs and division.

And that's just shameful.