9/11/11

I wasn't there.

I was on the second to last step of the beat-up house I rented with 7 other Catholic women during my junior year of college. I was confronted with my other early-rising roommate who simply said, "Can you believe it?"

She thought I already had been up and watching the news. She and I were routinely up by 7:00 am CST allowing us the chance to watch one of the major network morning news shows. We would eat our cereals on the mismatched sofas and I would drink my coffee; we'd discuss the news and commentary of that particular morning.

However, on September 11, 2001, I woke up a bit late. I was just heading down to get that bowl of cereal and cup of coffee. My roommate caught me off guard. We went to the living room. The cereal remained untouched.

Together we watched the second tower strike and sat, wordlessly, as the Towers fell.

Shaken, but caught somewhere between needing to have a sense of normalacy and the every present avid student, I walked to my first class. It was a constitutional law course. My professor had been at the State Capital in Madison that morning (I went to the University of Wisconsin-Madison). He had been evacuated along with the rest of the officials and visitors.

I do not remember much of that class. Snippets still are etched in the recesses of my memory - discussions about the legal repercussions, refusing to give in to terror by canceling class.

Later I sat on a hill by "The Tower of Babel," or as more commonly called, Van Hise building that housed all the foreign languages. I had brought a radio with earbuds to campus. I listened to an interview of Tom Clancy. I sat in line of sight of the Capital. I sat in a flight path that was normally humming with regular flights into the regional airport just a few miles from our campus and the Capital. I sat in that path's silence.

Yet later I would walk by the famous statue of President Lincoln at the top of that hill. I would walk down the eerily quiet Bascom Hill to the Catholic Campus Ministry Center of St. Paul's. There I would work my first afternoon as a peer minister at the front desk.

I would make copies of song sheets on our ancient copier until it literally shuddered. The songs were songs that were carefully chosen to fit the non-denominational, interfaith prayer service that was coordinated by one of our campus ministers. We had to make sure the music would be appropriate for all Christians, Jews, Muslims, and the rest of the mishmash of faith found on and near our campus.

I stood on Library Mall amid that crowd. There was sound and there was silence. I can't recall.

September 11, 2001, remains much like an art film. A few moments of shocking clarity surrounded by out of focus and confused chaos.

The days that followed remain much the same. I attended lectures. Many continued to be visibly shaken. I remember the moment I heard the first flight overhead when the airspace was reopened. I was in Bascom Hall for a Congressional Politics class. I was early. It flew overhead, directly towards the Capital. I held my breath, looked up, said a prayer as I watched the window. Silence. I went back to my book.

That book. In the days after, I needed comfort. I prayed. I talked with friends and mentors. I played my flute. I read. Somehow my usual comfort I could find in Jane Austen was inadequate. I picked up The Magician's Nephew. Over the next five or six days I read The Chronicles of Narnia. Perhaps it was merely escapism. Perhaps it was knowing that the world has been thrown into chaos before and it is possible to survive.

Ultimately, that first official day I worked in ministry wove together with all the other moments to lead me into a call to ministry and not law.

On Sunday when I wake up, I will have some cereal and my mug of coffee just like I have done every day for ten years. And I will remember.