Like most people, I know exactly where I was the day the world stopped turning. I was waiting for a friend in the local bakery. She walked in and said, “Did you hear something about a plane hitting one of the buildings of the World Trade Center?” We knew nothing more and chalked it up to rookie pilot error with a small plane and set to visiting. Then more and more people came in with news. We turned on the radio and as details began to reveal the seriousness of the situation, we went our separate ways. I went straight to a friend’s house and we watched together, holding onto each other with one hand…the other clasped over our mouths to stifle the screams.

Life as we new it changed in the breath of a New York minute. We became one people. We were softer…gentler with each other. We grieved as if it were our own family members dying in the rubble of what once stood mighty. We became resolved as a nation to pull together and get through this. We hugged strangers on the street. And now look at us. We haven’t been so far apart in 50 years. Where did the love go? What happened to our compassion? I don’t mean, you…and me. I’m referring to the collective we. Division is what the enemy seeks. Confusion is his realm. Go out today and take it back. Take the world and its people back into your loving embrace because, if we don’t turn this around and reunite as one, all those beautiful, promising lives lost are lost in vain. They are further gone from us. Go out today and embrace the world and her people. Spread a little love wherever you go. And never, ever forget.

❤️

“Come now, let’s make a covenant, you and I, and let it serve as a witness between us.”

Genesis 31:44