Remembering

Five years ago, I was just starting my US-2 experience
training for the job.
On a break from the employment readiness program,
a co-worker told me about the planes that his buildings
and the theories that had begun to formulate.
I sat in my car and listened to NPR
until I had to go back inside.

I held a prayer vigil the next night
in the parking lot of the shelter
where I lived and worked.

That Sunday,
I went to the big steeple church downtown.
We sang patriotic hymns and
in the sermon the minister repeated the phrase
"America will prevail."
I did not feel better.

I felt detached in the next weeks.
I had no tv access, so I missed the onslaught of images.
I bought newspapers and magazines.
I listened to NPR.
I tried to understand, to get a sense of what was happening.

I was learning about the business of social work,
working with homeless parents,
playing with precious kids,
talking with volunteers.
The work I came to do
did not change because of the attack.

Almost two years later,
I hobbled around NYC on crutches,
my right knee recovering
from being crumbled when I crashed my car.
I stood with Kristin at the site
trying to glimpse the hole where the towers had been.
I sat in the church across the street
that had housed, fed, and cared for the rescue workers.
I shook my head at the tables
where people sold souveniers.
I took a picture with some firemen
and construction workers.
I didn't make eye contact
with the machine-gun toting police officers.


My life has changed in the last 5 years.
Then, I was just learning about homelessness
as an accidental missionary.
Now, I'm taking a non-profit leadership class
in seminary.
Then, I was the resident manager in a shelter/self-sufficiency program.
Now, I am a campus minister and theology student with 2 roommates.
Then, I had just moved to Tallahassee.
Now, I've been in Atlanta for over 2 years.
There are other differences.
I'm not ready to talk about all of them.
But some are wonderful, and some make me really sad.

Time passes.