9/11 defines generation
Attack on the World Trade Center continues to shape millennial culture
MEMORIAL — The newly-completeled Freedom Tower breathes new life into a city rocked by terror 13 years ago on Sept. 11. Photo credit: Google Images
Born in the early ’90s, relatively speaking, millennials have not witnessed many world-shifting events. We did not see the first man on the moon, a presidential assassination, the dropping of an atomic bomb, the Pearl Harbor attack, the fall of the Berlin wall or the Civil Rights marches.
But there is one event that will be forever etched in the minds of this generation.
When the World Trade Center came crashing to the ground, millennials — most of them in elementary school — remember exactly where they were, exactly what they were doing. It was as if the world was ending. What would drive a person to such acts of cruelty?
Through the lens of Christianity, it is not hard to see that we live in a dark world. However, we must not allow these events to wreck us. Rather, they must shape us and make us better.
In the wake of the 9/11 attacks, the millennial generation saw a stronger America. Ever since then, our appreciation for our military and public servants has been unwavering.
“Young people saw that when America was in danger, the country — its citizens, its government and its armed forces — could rise to the challenge and get urgent tasks done quickly and decisively in order to meet the threat,” Margaret Hoover, former aide to President George W. Bush and Fox News commentator, said.
On this 13-year anniversary of the attack on the World Trade Center, we need to commit to standing by those individuals and families who lost loved ones. As a nation, we must remember the connectedness we felt and remain committed — together — not only to defeating terrorism, but to becoming a better people.
The horrors we face today come down to a true difference in ideology, a worldview that solves problems through war and a nation that is founded on liberty. As tragedies continue to happen, we cannot allow them to define us.
Instead, we must be defined by our efforts for peace, our commitment to freedom and our desire to combat the evils that we face.
“Despite our fallen nature, God desires to reflect goodness, beauty and truth in us,” Christian artist Makoto Fujimura, who lives in a Manhattan loft only blocks away from the World Trade Center, wrote of the attacks in his book, “Refractions.”
For the millennial generation, it is hard to imagine living in a world without terrorism, a world without the threats of evil. However, faith in something greater — faith in God — gives us the opportunity to be positively shaped by the atrocities of our time.
“God desires to refract his perfect light via the broken, prismatic shards of our lives,” Fujimura wrote.