What To Do With 9/11

 Nearly 25 years ago, I took a trip I didn't want to take.  However, I was convinced to go, and it had one of the biggest impacts of my life.  

I am a law enforcement chaplain, and I started my day by turning on the TV morning show.  That was my first glimpse of the North Tower of the World Trade Center in NYC on fire, sending out billows of smoke.  I thought, "What could have happened?  A mechanical failure?"  I would find out soon when I saw the second plane hit the South Tower.  We were under attack!  I woke my son to confirm what I was thinking.  

My thoughts went quickly to our officers, so I made my way to the police department. Flags were in every patrol car window.  I talked to a number of our employees.  I felt restless, like I should be doing something to assist with what was going on back East.  My first duty was to my home department.

Eventually, five chaplains from our group, including police and fire, went to New York the first week of December. (I'm on the far left in the red shirt.)                              

I have many stories to share, but  I refer you to my book, *SENT TO SERVE...THE CHAPLAINS OF 9/11.  It's a book about chaplains and what they do every day in your community, promoting a spirit of volunteerism and a message of hope.  If you like visuals, it has pictures!

It was a privilege to assist in NYC.  Check out this video on our local CBS affiliate about my time there. 

Many struggle with how to commemorate 9/11.  Perhaps that includes you.  While serving in NYC, I saw a poster on a bulletin board at a police precinct.  The NYPD was hosting a blood drive in honor of fallen officers.  When I returned to Oregon, I thought, "We should have such a drive at our department."  This coming 9/11 will be our 16th consecutive year! We say, "Give blood to honor those who gave their lives."  I spoke with a young mom.  She said, "I've never known what to do with 9/11.  This drive gives me purpose and context to remember this day."

I hope you find something to do this Patriot Day.  Perhaps volunteering or serving others.  Maybe pay it forward to a stranger or someone in your own family.  Each 9/11 from now on, you'll know what to do with 9/11.

*My book, SENT TO SERVE ... THE CHAPLAINS OF 9/11, is available on Amazon.

 

THE AMERICAN EXPERIMENT

 It's amazing what one finds while searching through their family tree.  I got an early start when I was in high school.  I like history, and genealogy is similar to detective work.  Perhaps your family experienced a more recent emigration to the United States.  

During the 250th birthday year of the United States, many are taking up the challenge of family exploration for the first time.  If one's immigrant ancestor arrived early, there was a likelihood one would be related to a founding father or mother.  Many of my family immigrated early to America, so I have discovered many surprises.  For example, my 10th-generation great-grandparents came over on the Mayflower in 1620.  Before you think that's special, there are probably at least 30 million Americans related to at least one of those Pilgrims, though many don't know it.  Two fell overboard.  My cousin drowned. One was recovered alive.  Because he escaped from death, we have had two Presidents Bush.

The Mayflower voyage is significant for several reasons (Thanksgiving dinner, etc.), but of great importance was the Mayflower Compact that the men signed before they landed in what would be Plymouth, Massachusetts. The Compact outlined Self-government and the rule of law. This became the first working governmental document in North America, a forerunner to the later U.S. Declaration of Independence and Constitution. 

I'm not fond of water, especially large bodies of H20.  The scientific name is aquaphobia, or fear of bodies of water.  For medical reasons, I have to avoid water in my nose.  I could explain why, but trust me, you don't have the time!  If I were with my Pilgrim ancestors and their friends, and someone asked, "Who would be willing to go to the New World?" my hand wouldn't shoot up.

There were 37 Separatists (people who wanted to separate from the Church of England) on the Mayflower, along with the ship crew and non-Separatists, for a total of 102.  Half would die that first winter, including my 10th Great Grandfather, William White.  Imagine the stories each could tell!  They endured hardships to find a place where they would be free to practice their faith and way of life.

America is full of such stories, both good and bad.  As a nation, we can learn so much and not repeat some of our earlier mistakes.  Remember, "Those who forget their past are doomed to repeat it."  "Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it." by Spanish-American philosopher George Santayana. It's hard to remember our past if we aren't aware of it.  That is the challenge of the education of our youth.  They can't remember the past because they haven't been properly taught it.  The core meaning remains the same: a society or individual that fails to retain the memory of past mistakes and their consequences is likely to repeat those same catastrophic mistakes over again. If we don't know history, we will forget the lessons of socialism and communism.  That is an easy trap for our young who want a cause to be sucked into.

The Mayflower experiment was not a perfect example, nor were our founders.  After 50 years of relative peace, the colony and Native Americans engaged in King Phillip's War. The Indians lost, which set up the impetus for further incursion into Native lands. Slavery started long before the Pilgrims, with the Spanish in 1526.  The British would follow suit by bringing 20 slaves to Virginia in 1619.  It seems no one's hands were free of guilt.  Some tribes in Africa would sell blacks from other tribes to white slave traders.

One reason for such division with other peoples was that they didn't bother to know each other's story.  Stories build connections. When you don't know another's story, conflicts and misunderstandings grow.  It is important to know each other's story.

During this quincentennial anniversary of America, let us pause and hear the stories around us so our differences become our strengths.

THE POWER OF SYMBOLS

When someone in the US is learning to drive, they must memorize traffic signs and learn the mechanics of driving.  The symbols on those signs are very important.  If one doesn’t follow them, they may cause an accident and end up in a serious predicament (like the man who didn’t obey the “Road Closed” sign and drove into a foot of fresh cement on an off-ramp). and even receive a heavy fine from a law enforcement officer.

What would happen if road symbols were suddenly changed and drivers didn’t know what they meant?  You might end up in chaos.

Sometimes people or groups steal symbols.  One example is the rainbow:

Many recognize it as the symbol of the LGBTQ+ movement.  Guess where they got it from?  For Christians, the origin is taken from the Bible as: 

A Sign of Peace showing that God would never again flood the earth.

A Reminder for God and Humanity: The text states, "I have set my rainbow in the clouds, and it will be the sign of the covenant between me and the earth." [Genesis 9:13]. It acts as a visible, physical reminder of God's faithfulness to His creation. For me, when I see a rainbow, I’m thankful.  I am thankful for God’s goodness, grace, and mercy that He has shown me.

Below is another symbol that hasn’t been stolen, but misinterpreted:

The Thin Blue Line flag is a symbol of pride and honor. It originated in the United Kingdom.  It is to commemorate fallen law enforcement officers and symbolize the relationship between law enforcement and the community.  The black stripes are a constant reminder of the fallen brother and sister officers. The blue line in the center represents the officer and their courage.  The black stripe immediately above the blue line represents the public. The line just under the blue line represents crime.  The blue line stands between the two black lines, a metaphor for standing between the public, protecting them from crime and danger.

Different thin line flags represent others who serve us, including fire, EMS, forestry, dispatch, etc.

The thin blue line flag is a noble cause and symbol.  The current narrative claims this as a racist symbol to SOME.  The SOME are saying to this flag, “We know better than you what you stand for.”  Really?

In the U.S., we believe in the freedom of expression only if it fits the current narrative.  I live in the Portland, Oregon area.  It is considered a very liberal city (ex. “Keep Portland Weird”).  We had a small decal on a car window, showing support for fallen officers.  My wife parked in a public lot.  When she got home, I noticed the decal had been hit with something, and the window had shattered.  We can’t support officers who have died in the line of duty!  A Sheriff’s Deputy told me, “You probably shouldn’t fly your Thin Blue Line flag at home.  It may not be safe.”  This is America, right?

In many ways, symbols have become confusing because people look at them subjectively and decide what they want them to mean.  Check this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V0QvUwxndzs&t=253s. 

In the movie “What About Bob?”, starring Richard Dreyfus (Dr. Leo Marvin) and Bill Murray (Bob), Dreyfus is a psychiatrist, and Murray is a mental health client.  Dr. Marvin drops Bob off at a mental health facility, but his college calls him back to say there is nothing clinically wrong with him.  Bob is found in the library telling the staff this story: 

“There was this Doc who was showing a patient various Rorschach ink blots.  He asked, ‘What do you see? Patient says, “Sex.”  How about this one? “Sex.”  Okay, what about this one?  “Sex.” The Doctor says, “Sex, sex, sex.  Your problem is sex!  Client replies, “You are the one with the problem.  You have the dirty pictures.”

Why are symbols important?  They identify a group or movement.  It’s a way for people to express themselves.  Freedom of expression is vital to the rights of all Americans.  Let’s let others have their interpretation of their own symbols of expression, as long as they let others do the same and don’t resort to violence. We may not agree with them, but we should respect their right to other ideas and beliefs.  That is the American way.

LOOKING FOR AMERICA

 

We recently celebrated my wife’s __?__ birthday in April.  She used to celebrate a normal birthday.  But thanks to her friend, who put a bug in her ear.  “We celebrate my birth MONTH!” You guessed it: we now celebrate my wife’s Birth Month annually. That makes things more costly.  I’m retired, but now I’m thinking of taking a part-time job to pay for the added celebration. Some things are worth celebrating, especially when they are 250 years old.          

I would especially like to have you, our readers, contribute to this 250^th Birthday of America.  Do you have someone in your family, ancestry, or a friend who contributed to making America great?  Maybe you have an interesting family story. Then please share that in the “Connect” box in the upper right of the home page.  Please try to keep the word count to 700.  Your contact information will be kept confidential.

From now through July 4th, each weekend, I’ll be sharing some tidbits of American history and culture. I believe you will find them entertaining and educational.

 

I know this dates me, but I remember the Bicentennial of America. (Yes, I was born in the  1900’s.) My wife made us colonial period costumes that we wore in a July 4^th  parade and church.  There was a covered wagon that crossed America, and a now-defunct restaurant gave out wooden coins that offered free coffee (see photo).  

Below is a picture of the 200^th birthday issue of Time magazine that I kept:

How does one “find” America? Obviously, we must look at our past, but also the present, and consider the future. It’s interesting and frightening that immigrants today who want to become American citizens know more about our history than our current citizens.  A course that all high school students took at one time was Civics.  It taught us about our country and how to be good citizens.  Today, you would be hard-pressed to find any school, especially a public school, that has such a course.  Our young people are worse off for it.  The famed actor, Richard Dreyfuss, has an initiative to bring back Civics to schools.  He said, “Teach our kids how to run our country, before they are called upon to run our country…if we don’t, someone else will run our country.”  I guess you can say, “A good citizen is an informed citizen.”  Many of our public schools are cranking out uninformed citizens.  Put “students can’t answer simple questions” in your YouTube search.  Be ready to laugh and cry.

Okay, people, let’s get informed. We’ll continue to learn about our country and the people who made America great in the weeks to come. 

 

Stepping Back Into The Future

Plenne L. Wingo

Have you heard of Plenne L. Wingo? He was an American man who walked backwards from Santa Monica, California, to Istanbul, Turkey, about 8,000 miles (13,000 km), from April 15, 1931, to October 24, 1932, at the age of 36. He remains the Guinness World Record holder for "greatest extent of reverse pedestrianism".  (Click here to read further about Plenne Wingo).

We just finished the first month of 2026.  We often wonder what a new year has in store for us.  Seeing ahead may not be as important as looking behind.  

At most graduations, a speaker will say something like, “And as we face the future ahead of us…” What would you say if I told you we step backwards into the future!  

I heard a preacher named Dennis Kinlaw share an illustration that should help.  He said that to ancient Hebrews, a man faces east.  That represents the past.  North is left, South is right.  West is back or behind. A person faces his past and steps back into his future. This messes up all the graduation speeches you might have heard.  We see our past as we gingerly step back into our future.  Does that sound scary?  It would if we didn’t trust our journey to God, who sees the future.

Here are some things to consider:

Look at the past:

The past can be painful.  If you live long enough, life will provide the pain.  I was once asked to do a critical incident stress debriefing for some missionaries in Malawi. A Critical Incident Stress Debriefing is a process whereby all of those involved share what they experienced, their thoughts, and feelings around the incident. This helps them step back into the situation and reframe it so they can begin to grow out of the experience. One of those missionaries was killed when his car swerved off the road.  His wife, kids, and fellow workers were traumatized.

Many of us would like to change the story of our past.  We somehow believe we would have been better off not having to experience the pain.  In reality, those incidents prepare us for the future and can enrich our lives.

My grandkids help me to step backwards. Sometimes when my grandkids hug me, they turn backwards.  So after we hug, they say, “Grandpa, you have to walk backwards now!”

Anticipating the future:

If little is known of the future behind us, we might do well to step backward and hope for the best with God’s help.  

There is a Wii game where the character is traveling in the dark and can only see a couple of feet ahead to stay on the path. Sometimes God gives us just enough light to see one step behind us into the future. 

That reminds me of the movie, WHAT ABOUT BOB, starring Richard Dryfus.  Bob is told by his shrink to take baby steps to overcome the fear of moving.  We must trust Him to be there for the next baby step.

Think about the life stories of those who intersected with yours in 2025.  What have you learned from those encounters?

FOUNDATIONS OF INDEPENDENCE

I grew up in an inexpensive house.  I knew we were poor when we visited my Uncle Dave.  They lived in a beautiful two-story home with immaculate furnishings.  The style of our furniture was Early Goodwill.  My father and a friend built an addition onto the kitchen.  At the time, it looked big, but it didn’t look so big when I came back as an adult.    

Many of you may have seen the Canadian comedy show, “Red Green.”  Red fixed everything with duct tape.  My dad fixed everything with Liquid Nails.  It often didn’t look that pretty, but was sometimes functional.

The house had a forbidden corner.  It was where a water pump once stood, so the floor sagged in that corner.  It wasn’t good for anything except storing bathroom linens.  My dad would say, “You kids don’t get too close to that corner, you might fall in!”  We were scared to get near it, except to retrieve a bath towel and wash cloth.  I would stand at some distance and reach as far as I could without falling into that chasm where I would disappear for all eternity.  If you ever dropped any change in the kitchen, it would probably roll down there, and the rescue of that coin wasn’t worth the danger.

Fast forward to the present.  We bought a house that had problems we weren’t aware of.  The house is not level!  Our ground is clay near a drainage ditch.  When it rains, the clay acts like a sponge, expanding the foundation.  Now, if a friend falls indoors, we only have to go to the Northeast corner of the room to find where they rolled.  Well, it’s not that bad, but you get the point.

FOUNDATIONS ARE IMPORTANT for houses and for nations.  Friday is Independence Day in the U.S. Our nation has certain foundational principles and ideas.  Those principles came from four basic sources.   The four major influences were ancient thought, Enlightenment philosophy, the English tradition, and Protestant Christianity.  (1) Ancient world thinkers and their failures taught the Founders a lot when constructing the American republic.   (2) Enlightenment thinkers emphasized that the people should rule themselves through a limited government that would protect natural rights and secure the liberties of the people.  (3) The British protected basic rights, such as the right to trial by jury, property rights, and no taxation without consent. The government would be limited, especially the monarchy. (4) The writings associated with the Protestant Reformation emphasized individual liberty from civil and religious oppression. Protestant ideas, based on Scripture, of resistance against tyranny were generally consistent with the other three strains of republican thought. (For further reading on this, click here.)

If you start to erode any of these four building blocks of the foundation of America, it causes instability.  If enough is chipped away, the nation can fall.  The one area that has most eroded is the Biblical principles because they are the easiest to attack and misinterpret.  We have gone on a witch hunt for Christian teachings that were used to build our original foundation.  After all, it was Jesus who told the story about the foolish man who built his house on a foundation of sand.  The winds and rain came, and the house was destroyed.  The wise man built his house upon a rock, and it withstood all that came against it. (Matthew 7:24-27).  We know how we built our foundation.  If we let it erode, we only have ourselves to blame.

As we consider these things, let’s be thankful for the wisdom of our founding fathers.  They gave us a great start. It is our responsibility to preserve it. 

HAPPY INDEPENDENCE DAY!

CHRISTMAS WITH A PURPOSE

 

https://pixabay.com/users/gustavorezende-1488336/

Each Christmas time, we kids in the neighborhood would go caroling.  It was a fun and constructive time, and it got us out of our parents' hair.  We lived up in Indiana near Lake Michigan, so there was snow and cold.  Often, when we performed at a neighbor's house, they would give us candy, cookies, or hot cocoa.  We appreciated the cocoa. It kept us going to our next gig. 

One year, we heard about a family from France who moved into the neighborhood at Christmas time.  They were professionals in balancing and juggling.  They had recently appeared on the Bozo the Clown TV show.  We also heard they were on hard times.  The cost of moving and little work added up to a sparse Christmas.

We had an idea.  When we went caroling, we could ask for money for this family rather than the other treats.  We collected a big chunk of change and got the goodies anyway.

We planned our last stop at the French family's rental home.  They opened the door very cautiously.  As we began to sing, they opened the door wider.  They enjoyed the music and the very idea that we would come and sing to them made them smile.  After we finished with, “We Wish You A Merry Christmas,” we handed them the card with the gift funds.  They had smiles and tears.  Their gratitude was evident, even with the language barrier.

Somehow, it didn’t seem so cold outside as we made our way back home.  I’m sure it was the warmth we felt in our hearts as we gave to others in need.

MERRY CHRISTMAS EVERYONE

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Please...consider sharing your own Christmas story.  Click the pencil below to reply.

 

 

Purpose With A Passion!

 I  sometimes regret not having learned a second language.  I had one Spanish class in college, but I didn't do very well.  Somehow I don't think being able to say "Hi, Ola" qualifies as a second language. I make up for it in other ways.  For example, I tell others that, "I'm by-lingual.  I speak English and Hoosier."  Many young people don't understand the term "Hoosier," but for those more enlightened of us, we know a Hoosier is a person from the State of Indiana.  You are probably surprised to know the reactions vary.  Yeah.

As a child of Indiana, I remember a certain woman named Phyllis.  It seemed her goal in life was to kick rocks off of the two-lane highway near us.  You could tell she was a professional.  When she saw a rock, she got that determined look on her face, briefly check the traffic...sometimes, and kicked that sucker off of the road.  She should have carried a cane with her so she could notch in every time she kicked a rock.  Imagine how many canes she would go through.

I never spoke to Phyllis.  She seemed a little odd and I wasn't brave enough to make an attempt.  Was, or had she, ever been married?  What events shaped her life?  Did she have a loved one who died hitting a rock on the road while driving a motor vehicle?  Sadly, I'll never know the answers to those questions.  I feel like I missed an opportunity to know her story.

What did Phyllis have that some people don't have?  Purpose.  She had the satisfaction of helping others avoid an object and possible injury.

What is your story, your purpose?  Perhaps you don't feel like you have much to offer.  When you think that way, remember Phyllis.

(Please hit the pencil icon below and let us know about your story.  Perhaps someone needs to hear from you.)