A time to pray

This is the Day of Infamy 2001.

Yes, my fellow Americans, today, Sept. 11, 2001, will be remembered as the nation’s second Day of Infamy – more shocking, more terrifying, more bloody than the first.

This disaster, this tragedy, this event is bigger than Pearl Harbor by any standard you want to measure it.

The cowardly but well-planned air attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon have changed our world forever. Things will never be the same. America got a wakeup call today. Now we know that no one in this world is safe from terrorism.

This is war. That needs to be stated for the millions of Americans who have no memory of real war, who don’t understand real threats to their lives and liberties. America’s mainland is under attack from an unseen, unknown enemy.

Just for review purposes:

• The mighty World Trade Center’s collapse after hijacked commercial airliners are apparently forced by terrorists to crash into the twin towers – edifices that have for decades loomed over the city skyline.

• 10,000 emergency workers head to disaster scene in the busiest city in the world.

• Another plane crashes into the Pentagon, creating a mammoth hole in the heart of America’s national defense and security apparatus.

• American Airlines and United Airlines both confirm losing two planes each – both assumed hijacked.

• President Bush hovers somewhere over the United States in Air Force One, planning a response, considering retaliation and coordinating federal emergency actions.

• All federal buildings and the United Nations are evacuated.
  

• The Federal Aviation Administration grounds all U.S. flights, major airports are closed.

• Israel evacuates its embassies.

• The Taliban, a frequent host to Osama bin Laden, issues statement to tell U.S. ‘Afghanistan feels your pain.’

Everyone feels helpless, stunned. Everyone is grasping for understanding, searching for meaning, desperately hunting for perspective.

At times like this, America, there’s only one thing most of us can and should do – pray.

Pray for the victims. Pray for God’s divine intervention in our lives. Pray for wisdom for our leaders. Pray for New York. Pray for our nation. Pray for justice. And, yes, pray for peace.