This is probably one of my favorite pictures taken on September 11. It’s a misnomer to use favorite, and yet, it is exactly that. I am moved, saddened, angered, and appalled by much of what I saw on that day and the subsequent days that followed, but this one, whenever I run across it, never ceases to amaze me.
It looks like a cathedral. I find that oddly reminiscent of that day for me…I was working at church, and witnessed the steady stream of people seeking solace in front of the Blessed Sacrament.
I heard many people lament, “Where was God?” He was always there. Always. As now.
There’s a glaring absence in acknowledging God today in some high profile events. That’s a shame. It is, sadly, one of those failings of the human condition that leads us to get too comfortable, too sure of our worth, too selfish and self-centered to see beyond our finite and vulnerable selves.
But that refusal to acknowledge…invite…invoke…worship…doesn’t diminish, for a moment, His presence.
Thanks for this insightful post, Maria.
That day, I was off from my church job… but I’ll never forget the whole town and all its clerics coming to our church (the church with the largest seating) that night and praying together…
What a haunting image. All kinds of emotions ran through me when I saw this. In everything that happened that day, God was with us.