Dear Friend,
I know it is Saturday, and I normally only do a Leadership Though on M-F, but I had to share with you a powerful event I experienced on 9/11. On Thursday Jean and I attended a 9/11 Ceremony at Leonardo, a location that looks some 30 miles across the water to what was Ground Zero. Our Middletown area lost more people, 37, in the World Trade Center bombing than any other community in the country. One of our own church members Mike Reuter, a Middletown policeman, was in charge of the event, and he led a group of 30 Middletown policeman on a four-mile run from the Middletown Train Station to the Memorial Park in Leonardo. He was pushing his two boys ahead of him in a stroller. Our pastor Jared Nicastro led us in prayer, and our Middletown mayor paid tribute to the police and firemen who so faithfully serve our community. With a huge flag attached to a fire truck ladder flying high above our heads, the ceremony was a beautiful and unifying experience that Jean and I were thrilled to experience. As we stood there, I thought to myself, "I wish all of America could come together today in the same way we did after 9/11.
When I returned home, I received the following e-mail with a video of the day President George Bush threw out the first pitch at Yankee Stadium following the disaster. It is worth seeing again, if only as a reminder, of what it feels like when our nation is united in mind and spirt.
May our prayer be, "Lord, help me be a part of the solution and not the problem. Help me reach out to everyone I meet in love, and regardless of their color, political party, economic status, or any other issue that has the potential to divide us, may I see each of them as a person to love and as a person for whom Christ died.
Yours in faith and friendship,
Tom
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