Weep With Those Who Weep

Doesn't it seem like lately we've had way too many opportunities to do this? Worldwide Covid-19 deaths, Hurricane Ida flooding, plus the Afghanistan situation have created plenty of tears. Plus, today was 9/11, complete with memorials for the unsuspecting citizens, twenty years ago, who were held hostage on rogue flights they never planned.

One of those planes hit the Pentagon. I saw a review of that tragedy on Friday. Today I tried to watch the other two memorials.

I started with the one near Shanksville, Pennsylvania, Flight 93 National Memorial. As names were read of brave citizens who acted in solidarity to bring the rogue plane down, I couldn’t help it---I wept.

I tried switching to the memorial in New York. It only brought more tears. Twenty years have not erased the impact of this tragedy.

While listening to names read at Ground Zero, I had one question. Why did so many people have the same last names?

I was satisfied with the information in an article titled “The World Trade Towers Collapsed on Will Jimeno. How Did He Survive?” You can find this article by Garrett M. Graff (09/10/2021) on the web.

Never having been to New York, I did not know The World Trade Center actually consisted of seven buildings on sixteen acres. The Twin Towers famously dominated the skyline. Statistics say there were more than 50,000 daily occupants and over 200,000 daily visitors.

Will Jimeno, a NY Port Authority Police Officer trapped for thirteen hours in rubble between the two towers before he was rescued, has written a book: Sunrise Through the Darkness.

In his article, Mr. Graff, historian, journalist, podcaster, and author of a NY Times Best Seller (The Only Plane in the Sky: An Oral History of 9/11), gave Will Jimeno’s book a thumbs up: “It’s the most hopeful and inspiring story from that day I’ve ever found.”

After speaking engagements, people usually say they can’t think of a worse thing to happen. Will, having dealt with physical injuries, survivor guilt and PTSD still has the heart to weep with those who weep (Romans 15:12, NLT).

He says, “Whatever tragic event is happening in your life, at that moment, you have your own World Trade Center. It isn’t comparative or competitive. At some point, in all our lives, we’re going to feel like the World Trade Center fell on top of us. It’s what we do in that moment---and who we are after---that matters most.”

Thanks, Will, for your example of bravery and compassion.