Our most vivid memories are often the crises, the points of tension and drama we have experienced in our lives.   I was not quite seven months old on the day of the attack on pearl harbor so to be quite honest  I don’t actually remember that one.  I do remember the celebration at the end of that war four years later.   At 12:36 p.m., November 22, 1963 I  was working on a daily newspaper in Hastings, NE and I can still tell you with complete detail what happened in our newsroom that day of President Kennedy’s assassination.

Today is the anniversary of another such memorable event.  Almost anyone but the very youngest at the time can tell you exactly where they were and what they were doing on September 11, 2001.   I was traveling from our home in Iowa to my interim congregation in Yankton, SD  and can still feel the chill that went down my spine listening to the radio reports of the terrorists’ attack.   

Those events like the pandemic days in which we find ourselves now can bring a sense of wonderment and speculation about what God has in mind for us.  As people of faith, though, we live in the certainty that God is still in control despite all these events that seem to argue for the contrary.  We are people of the promise and neither evil actions nor viruses can destroy that.  

The following prayer is borrowed from a Jesuit priest, Fr. James Martin: “In times of pain give me comfort.  In times of despair, give me hope.  In times of hatred, give me love.  In times of doubt, give me trust.  And even when I feel far from you, be close to me, loving God.  Amen,”