A Friday in September

I think it was about 230 in the morning on September the 12th, 2001 that Ruth and I were awakened in our home in Falls Church, Virginia, about 20 minutes from Capitol Hill by the sound of jet engines. These were not 737s or 767s or triple sevens. F-16 fighter jets have a very different sound than a commercial jet. It's a throaty deep sound and we could hear them in the night. 9-11 have changed the world and instantly F-16 jets had been put in play. Every day I believe for the next year 24-7 circling over Washington DC is a blanket of protection and defense. And what at one level was made you scared at the other level, made you feel protected. September 11 had been so horrific that there was no way to accommodate that in one's brain very easily. September 12 had everything to do with what happens next. And on that Wednesday during the day I got a call from the White House. I rarely get a call from the White House. By the way, this is Dick Foth with stories from the road. I can't remember getting a call from the White House per se before or after that. And it was from the faith-based arm that was in motion there. They were trying to put together a list of attendees for a prayer gathering that the president had called for Friday the 15th of September at the National Cathedral. Had a friend who was in the faith-based side and asked if I would come down that evening to help them create a list of folks to be invited from the faith communities of which I was aware. So I drove down that evening and it was dark and they had a perimeter set up, I think maybe three blocks around the White House. And on every corner stood a person in military gear, army personnel with rifles and gas masks and it was like a ghost town, it was like a scene from some scary Hollywood movie. And I walked those three blocks and was admitted to the White House and we spent the next hour or two helping to create that list. And because of that, Ruth and I were invited to come to that Friday event. We ended up going that Friday morning to the National Cathedral and if you have been to Washington DC, the National Cathedral was the highest point in DC. It sits up high on Wisconsin Avenue and it's bell tower reaches to the skies if you will. This is a facility that took 80 some years to build like one of those Gothic cathedrals from Europe. It was a dreary day. It was a cloudy rainy, if I remember it day. There were helicopters and play, security was huge and we got there early and found a place down toward the front where we were directed and just were contemplating the enormity of what was going on. Here was the most significant attack on the nation in decades and decades and decades. And the response, not just military or not just congressional, a response led by the President of the United States was to gather leaders, not just of our nation but of the nations and ambassadors and all of those folks for a time of prayer. As we sat in the National Cathedral and looked around at those high stained glass windows and just the magnificence and sort of overwhelming design of the inside, people started coming in. So you had all of the joint chiefs of staff. You had Supreme Court justices. You had members of the Senate and the House. You had ambassadors and other leaders from all across Washington, D.C. and quite possibly from other parts of the world, filing in, finding their places. I think it seats somewhere in the thousands, three to four thousand, potentially. And I was just weighing what a moment this was. It was almost too hard to sequence thoughts. One of the main guests that day and all the, I think, one of the living presidents were there, former presidents were there. And a special guest that day to speak to the nation was what many historically called America's pastor Dr. Billy Graham. Now 82 years old, suffering some from age and from sickness was supposed to be there. Maybe 20 minutes before things started or 25 minutes, I thought I'd just get up to go outside just as I walked all the way to the back of the cathedral, which is a fair stroll. I reached for the door, the swinging doors and it swung open and I stood face to face with Dr. Billy Graham. And he looked at me and smiled, that wonderful smile. Stuck his hand out, shook mine and said, Hi, I'm Billy Graham and I'm so glad you've come. I have to tell you, I didn't want to wash that hand for a week. But in that one statement, he captured for me who I had always known him to be the great inviteer. He spoke to more people in the history of the world in the last century than anyone else, either in person and it was tens of millions in person. And by virtue of radio and television, I think they estimate two and a half billion people. And he would invite people to take a deeper look at their lives and a broader look at the universe and the look at eternity and follow Jesus. And I'd been in some of those services, some of those what they called at the time, Crusades, that word of course now is out of fashion if I could put it that way. Just to be in those moments and listening to a mass choir sing just as I am without one plea with no defense, but that your blood was shed for me. Just moments in time that are profound in my heart. But Billy went and took his place down at the front. We sang hymns. There were thoughts expressed by two or three folks. And then it came time for him to speak. And because of age, they had to help him up the several steps up to the place from which he spoke to that pulpit area. And in the next 20 minutes or so, he reminded us who we were, who we could be, and called us as a nation to repentance to turn around and see that there was a living God and we needed to trust him in these moments. When he was done, it was absolutely still that came to help him down. And as he as they helped him down the stairs, the dean of the cathedral and a couple of associates were sitting in high back chairs on the main floor level facing the audience. And they were in their robes and so forth. And as they helped him down, all of a sudden the dean clapped his hands together and just began to clap in a rhythmic way like this. And all of a sudden the rest of the congregation broke into applause. There was this overwhelming moment in time that was like an exclamation point on Dr. Graham's message that was saying yes in that moment in time. When I look back on my own life, that day, not September 11th, but September 15th, Friday, captures what I'd like to believe was my heart and the hearts of those also in that congregation that in the face of tragedy, in the face of horrific evil in my perspective, that the goodness and the greatness of God was to be commemorated, that the dead were to be honored, but that God himself was to be looked to. And in this week of what we call 9-11, I would just like one more time as I did in the last podcast to reference Psalm 91. He who dwells in the shelter of the most high will abide in the shadow of the Almighty. I will say to the Lord, my refuge and my fortress, my God in whom I trust. That now is something to remember. That is something to cheer. That is something to count on. I will hope you will going forward. God bless you. Thanks for listening. Thanks for subscribing. I can't tell you how much joy it brings me to be able to chat with or speak to you. We're not having a chat yet. They speak to you as often as we can on these little podcasts. Grateful for you. And let's remember that as we go forward. My refuge, my fortress, my God, in whom I trust. That's it. I'm out. Catch you next time. This is Dick Foth with stories from the road.