I think everyone who can remember September 11, 2001 knows where they were and what they were doing on that day.  I was in my kitchen with my two young sons feeding them breakfast when my husband called to tell me a plane had flown into the Twin Towers.  Not wanting my young sons to absorb too much, I turned on the radio and listened to the unfolding events.  On that tragic day, political affiliations, religious persuasions, education, social classes, and ethnicities were forgotten.  We were all Americans bonded by our common grief and horror.  

 

On Saturday, we, like many of you, gathered to commemorate 9/11 with a “Day of Service”.  Members of our community created “Pantry Packs” to feed the hungry, they gave blood, helped clean up parks and trails and in the morning, more than two hundred and fifty gathered to participate in a 5K with the entrance fees all going to the local children’s justice center. 

 

Volunteers were there before the sun was up and as runners began to assemble, energy built.  Friends greeted each other, strangers introduced themselves.  As people warmed up a few broke out into dancing.  A family gathered in yellow shirts all running with their 85 year old father and grandfather and everyone else cheered for him too.  Veterans and current military service men and women came to help us remember those who put their lives on the line to protect the freedoms we enjoy every day.  The high school drum line played and as the national anthem was sung, we all turned to the flag flown from the ladder of a fire truck with our hands on our hearts.  

 

This time it wasn’t sadness and grief that united us.  Instead we felt what one runner expressed as the “power of gathering.”  Every person brought the strength of their presence and the combined capacity was tangible.  “The children of God have more in common than they have differences. And even the differences can be seen as an opportunity. God will help us see a difference in someone else not as a source of irritation but as a contribution. The Lord can help you see and value what another person brings which you lack. More than once the Lord has helped me see His kindness in giving me association with someone whose difference from me was just the help I needed.” (President Henry B. Eyring, October 2008)

 

We are surrounded by children of God who carry portions of His talents, gifts and capacities.  Together, we are more like Him than we are by ourselves and together we can create and strengthen the community that lifts us all.