You know where you were. I know where I was. I was laying on Dr. Rick Brown's Chiropractic table in Eustis. Rick was one of my elders at the time. The word came on the radio and from that point on, everything else that day is kind of a blur.
But what I remember in the following days are actually good memories. America was praying again. America was back in church. God was being prayed to and Jesus was being exalted on National TV. Our petty differences were viewed as exactly that: petty. And as a result those differences were placed on the back burner for something that mattered even more: ONE NATION UNDER GOD.
In the months that followed, many artists wrote and recorded songs that paid tribute to those lost on 9/11/01. One of those songs was "Undivided" by Bon Jovi.
That was my brother lost in the rubble
That was my sister lost in the crush
That was our mothers, those were our children
That was our fathers, that was each one of us
A million prayers to God above
A million tears make an ocean of
One for love
One for truth
One for me, one for you
I found spirit, they couldn't ruin it
I found courage in the smoke and dust
I found faith in the songs you silenced
Deep down its ringing out in each of us
One for love
One for truth
One for me, one for you
Where we once were divided, now we stand united
We stand as one... undivided.
How many hands? how many hearts?
How many dreams been torn apart?
Enough, enough... the time has come to rise back as
One for love
One for truth
One for me, one for you
Where we once were divided now we stand united
We stand as one... undivided.
I went back and watched the video today. I even watched the live performance of it from two months after and I heard him say "let's not let this feeling fade away." Sadly, for many, it has. We are once again divided over so many things: War, The President, health care, and the economy just to name a few. More walls of division are being constructed everyday and no one takes credit for building them. It's always the other side. And our differences are no longer petty.
I don't ever want another 9/11. But I long for the feeling of a unified nation that we had afterwords. I think of the words of David when he said in Psalm 133, "How good and pleasant it is when brothers live together in unity!" I pray we will all have that feeling again and that it will not take another 9/11 to make us "One Nation Under God."
If you would like to watch the video for Undivided, the link is:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wjtt0limQBw
The live version that was recorded a couple of months after 9/11 is:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bbit6bl8wUA
