9|11

President Thomas S. Monson's thoughts on 9|11, taken from this article.

"There was, as many have noted, a remarkable surge of faith following the tragedy. People across the United States rediscovered the need for God and turned to Him for solace and understanding. Comfortable times were shattered. We felt the great unsteadiness of life and reached for the great steadiness of our Father in Heaven. And, as ever, we found it. Americans of all faiths came together in a remarkable way.

Sadly, it seems that much of that renewal of faith has waned in the years that have followed. Healing has come with time, but so has indifference. We forget how vulnerable and sorrowful we felt. Our sorrow moved us to remember the deep purposes of our lives. The darkness of our despair brought us a moment of enlightenment. But we are forgetful. When the depth of grief has passed, its lessons often pass from our minds and hearts as well.

Our Father’s commitment to us, His children, is unwavering. Indeed He softens the winters of our lives, but He also brightens our summers. Whether it is the best of times or the worst, He is with us. He has promised us that this will never change.

But we are less faithful than He is. By nature we are vain, frail, and foolish. We sometimes neglect God. Sometimes we fail to keep the commandments that He gives us to make us happy. Sometimes we fail to commune with Him in prayer. Sometimes we forget to succor the poor and the downtrodden who are also His children. And our forgetfulness is very much to our detriment.

If there is a spiritual lesson to be learned from our experience of that fateful day, it may be that we owe to God the same faithfulness that He gives to us. We should strive for steadiness, and for a commitment to God that does not ebb and flow with the years or the crises of our lives. It should not require tragedy for us to remember Him, and we should not be compelled to humility before giving Him our faith and trust. We too should be with Him in every season."

image by Fynnegan Sloyan

Remember

Stars and Stripes in Spring City, UT 9.11.10

In Memorium

With the speed of the car, the French countryside blurred into red and green. It was as if Monet himself had poked a paintbrush through the clouds to touch up the poppies in the fields just for us; for me. Because he knew I was coming. Because he knows I love red. His red.

After a week in the hustle and bustle of Paris, amid budding trees and spring bulbs, we were headed north. Towards wide open space and green fields full of poppies and yellow wildflowers that swayed in the gentle breezes of the Spring air. We spent a semi-rowdy morning running along the cobblestones and ducking down narrow alleyways at Mont Saint-Michel. All of us piled in two cars and caravanned to the Landing Beaches of Normandy. Fearing the children would be restless, the grown-ups cautioned and quieted. Once we arrived, no reminders were necessary. Even the little ones of our bunch became reverent as we walked through the rose gardens towards the cemetery and The Memorial from the Gardens of the Missing.

There, on a plot of American soil graciously granted to us by France, on a large field of green are over 9,000 gravestones, standing still no matter the breeze or the season. Marking the lives of U.S. Servicemen and women who lost their lives during WWII, row after row after row they poke up from the ground like flowers, stretching up towards the sun. We walked the lawn overlooking the English Channel and marveled at how, from any angle, all the headstones lined up: a symbol of order to the chaos that was.

I suppose from time to time those that lost their lives reach their finger through the clouds to trace along the narratives on the wall of the colonnade, words of encouragement, words of tribute. Those who were never identified nor found, but whose names are chiseled into the stone, walk the rose gardens (perhaps bringing a paintbrush) to prove that they were. That they are. That they always will be. They do not sleep, but there they lie, to etch in our memory the importance of liberty and life, so we won't forget. So we will pause in reverence and run our fingers along the narratives in the colonnades of history, tracing the names of those who gave their lives in pursuit of our happiness; our future; our freedom.

Today, we remember. We pay tribute. We give thanks to those no longer with us, those who have fought and those who continue to fight, never sleeping though poppies grow. We shall hold the torch high. We shall not break faith. We shall always remember.


In Flanders fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses, row on row
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.

We are the Dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved and were loved, and now we lie
In Flanders fields.

Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields.