wfn.org | 'Normal' life not the same since Sept. 11 attacks

[NewsDesk <NewsDesk@UMCOM.ORG>]

Sept. 12, 2002	 News media contact: Tim Tanton7(615)742-54707Nashville,
Tenn.  10-71B{408}

NOTE: For related coverage, see UMNS story #407.

By Melissa Lauber*

WASHINGTON (UMNS) - As America somberly marks the first anniversary of the
Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, many United Methodists in the
Baltimore-Washington area continue to wrestle with the personal impact of
last year's events.

"Things are returning to normal, but normal now is not the same as normal a
year ago," said the Rev. Dennis Yocum, a chaplain from Mt. Airy who serves
with the 167th Air Wing of the West Virginia Air National Guard. "There are
new realities present in the world."

For the Cooper family of Hughes Memorial United Methodist Church in
Washington, a new reality is Julianah Marie, a daughter born six months
after her father, Julian, was killed at the Pentagon.

Four-year-old Stephan Young also lost his father, Edmond Young Jr., when
American Airlines Flight 77, en route from Dulles Airport to Los Angeles
with 64 people onboard, crashed into the Pentagon.

"In Sunday school he's taught about God, Jesus and heaven," said Margaret
Young, Stephan's grandmother. "But at times he just really wants his dad."

Since that day, Margaret Young has spoken to people who were with her son
shortly before the attack. "When the plane hit, it must have been like
closing his eyes and waking up in heaven," she said.

Young claims the family is getting by. "But we're not good. Sept. 11th never
really left us," she said. "There's always something to cope with. There's
never been a healing moment. But by the grace of God, we're getting through
it."

Debbie Anderson, of Reisterstown United Methodist Church, finds it difficult
to put into words the emotions she feels when she thinks of her sister who
died at the World Trade Center.

"I can still hear her voice," Anderson said. "I dwell on her children and
pray for them." Her sister had 4-year-old twin girls, and Anderson worries
that they'll miss their mother's love. Post-Sept. 11, she also often finds
herself startled about how vulnerable people are. 

"I don't know if I'm different now," she said. "But I'm aware of how fragile
life is. Anything can happen."

Her sister, Karen Seymour, was on the 103rd floor of the World Trade
Center's first tower on the morning of the attacks - above the point where a
hijacked plane was crashed into the building. 

The Rev. Frank Trotter, pastor of Metropolitan Memorial United Methodist
Church in Washington, mentioned Seymour's name during a commemoration
service on the one-year anniversary of the attacks. Metropolitan, founded in
1852 as the national Methodist church, was one of more than 85 congregations
in the Baltimore-Washington Conference holding services that day.

During his sermon, Trotter recalled weeding his garden on Sept. 11, then
realizing that he was watering the weeds he had just uprooted. That was the
year, in a nutshell, for many Americans, he said. "I was feeling punitive
and healing all in the same moment." 

Andy Moffitt, a 19-year-old firefighter from Lanham United Methodist Church
who spent six hours fighting the blaze at the Pentagon, does not dwell on
Sept. 11. He can still feel the intense heat from the burning jet fuel. "I
remember the sensations," he said.

"But it made me understand you have to get over things. You can't dwell on
something like that or it will run your life," he said.

Moffitt also believes the events of Sept. 11 have made him realize how
connected the United States is to the rest of the world. He reacts
differently when he hears news about bombings in Israel and similar reports.

"It all makes me wonder," he said. "I keep asking the simple questions, like
why did it happen." So far he's not found any definitive answers.

However, according to Yocum, who worked with the military community from the
Pentagon in the weeks following the bombing, the questions are not bad.

"Events like those of Sept. 11 throw us back to the eternal questions: who
are we, why are we here? We realize our own smallness and that God is in
control of the universe still and we are not," he said. "We seek out the
grace, power and authority of God who is still in control. It pushes us to
faith."

The gaping hole in the Pentagon has been rebuilt. "This signals a new day,"
said Yocum, who prays that God will make everyone, particularly those with
whom he serves in the military, instruments of peace.

"When we are being preservers, protectors and creators of peace," he said,
"we are doing God's will."

# # #

*Lauber is associate editor of UMConnection, the newspaper of the United
Methodist Church's Baltimore-Washington Conference.

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United Methodist News Service
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