9/11

I hate to start of the weekend with a post of something sad. But really, I have to say something about 9/11. It's hard to believe that it has been 9 years. I know most of you know exactly where you were when you heard the news. I was in 10th grade Theology and we were watching TV (Big surprise at St. Al). Our teacher had a moment of sanity and told us we had to watch the news and not MTV. The second we turned to CNN the second plane hit the twin towers. At this point, none of us knew the back story. The more we watched, the more surreal it all became. The rest of the day the whole school watched as the sad story unfolded.
I was thinking about 9/11 yesterday, and I realized that none of the children in my class were even alive when it happened. That doesn't seem possible that they never lived in the same America we did. Because like it or not, everything changed that day. A lot of the changes were bad. But I think that it made a lot of us realize how wonderful it is to be an American. How privileged we are to have been born here. Instead of talking to my students about 9/11 and all the terrible things we saw (and were lucky enough not to see) that day, I decided to talk to them about what it means to be an American. Sure they all know we are free, they've heard it a million times. But what does being free really mean? It means that everyone has the right to an education. Everyone can pray however, and whenever they want. You can become absolutely anything you want as long as you put your heart in it. No one can silence your opinion or your voice. If my students take nothing else away from the 2nd grade, I want it to be the knowledge of what it means to be an American. I want them to have an appreciation of our country and what we stand for.
So today, when you think about 9/11 and you pray for the families and the victims of that tragic day, please pray for the children in our country. Pray that they will grow up knowing the America we all knew before 9/11. Pray that they will be proud of their country and they will appreciate the freedoms given to them at birth. But mostly, pray that as they grow older, they will instill what it means to be an American to the next generation.

**Drive past the Military park if you get a chance. Breathtaking.