[Today’s note will be short. In the hearts and minds of many Americans, September 11 is a date forever seared into our memory. Most, including myself, can remember exactly where they were when the news broke. As for me, I was 11, waiting for the bus to pick me up when it was announced that the first tower had been hit. I watched the news unfold on a 12-inch television, my face 6 inches from the screen. At 11, I didn’t understand what was happening. All I knew was that my babysitter at the time, Maggie Terhark, was more distraught than I had ever seen her. She started panicking so I started panicking. I didn’t comprehend the reality of the situation but I knew it must be serious. It wasn’t until the months that followed that I would come to learn just how serious.
Since that day, I’ve visited the 9/11 Museum and the Memorial in New York a number of times. Like many of you, I’ve listened to the messages that passengers on the hijacked flights had with their loved ones on the ground. The tragic stories of that day are enough to bring us to our knees and make us wonder why. Every year, this day brings those questions back to the surface. If there is a God, why would he let things like this happen? What possible purpose could there be to such tragedies?
And every year, I am reminded that the only stories coming out of 9/11 are not sad ones but ones of tremendous triumph and examples of everyday courage. The countless first responders that poured in to help secure the safety of citizens in the area. The unity of a nation coming together. And the man in the red bandana, whose courage in the face of the greatest testing point, is a reminder every year that heroes are not just in our myths and legends; they are living and breathing among us.]
“Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.”1
September 11, 2001 saw the worst terrorist attached in the history of America. 2,977 people died as two hijacked planes were turned into flying bombs and used to take down the World Trade Center.
Months after the tragic day, stories of a mysterious man began to emerge. People recounted a scene from the 78th-floor sky lounge (which housed the express elevator) of the South Tower. As fire and smoke filled the hall and many were disoriented, a voice cut through the chaos. “Over here!” the voice beckoned, leading people toward the stairs and then down seventeen flights to safety. One of the struggling was so weak that the man to whom the voice belonged picked her up and carried her across his back.
When the man reached the lower floor with clear air, he urged the group to continue down and then went back up looking for others to help.
For months, the man’s identity was a mystery, until the stories of those saved began to identify something they all recognized: he wore a red bandana.
Hearing the stories of the red bandana, his mother recognized it immediately as something her son carried within him wherever he went. The man’s name: Welles Crowther, a 24-year-old rookie equities trader, whose incredible courage and love that day blessed the world.
Legend has it that one of Crowther’s co-workers once teased him about the red bandana on his desk and Welles responded with “this bandana’s going to change the world.”
And indeed it did.
John 15:13.