“Oh, my God! . . . The entire building has collapsed.”

Journalist Don Dahler is a military brat, familiar with the sound of planes. 

So when he heard the roar and then the crash, his first thought was, I think that was a missile.

The reports began almost immediately: a small plane had hit the north tower of the World Trade Center.

Dahler knew that what he’d heard was not a small plane. 

His journalistic instincts kicked in, and he grabbed his phone, dashed out to his fire escape - which gave him a clear view of the Twin Towers - and called into ABC’s Good Morning America. Dahler, at the time, was a correspondent for ABC. 

For the next several minutes, he described the scene unfolding before him: more and more fire and smoke, and his assertion that the hole in the north tower was too big for it to have been made by a small commuter plane.

At 9:03 a.m., with Charles Gibson and Diane Sawyer commenting on the pictures they were seeing, and stressing that they were reporting speculation and that they knew little at the moment, Don Dahler said: 

“Well, we’re seeing - it appears that the - there is more and more fire and smoke enveloping the very top of the building, and as fire crews descending on this area, it — it does not appear that there’s any kind of an effort up there yet. Now remember - oh, my God!” 

Don Dahler had just seen United Flight 175 hit the south tower of the World Trade Center. 

Not only did he viscerally react, the studio crew cried out in astonishment and Diane Sawyer gasped, “My God!” under her breath. 

It was the moment Don Dahler and everyone else knew that this was not an accident, that it was a deliberate attack. Dahler could not see the plane hit the building from where he stood but he could see the explosion. 

From then on, Dahler kept his eyes and ears on the Twin Towers, as best he could. 

At 9:58 a.m., Peter Jennings looked at the screen and said, “We now have - what do we have?  We don’t . . . now, it may be that something fell off the building.  It may be that something has fallen, but we don’t know, to be perfectly honest.”

Then Jennings said that “Stan Dahler” was “down in the general vicinity” and asked, “Dan, can you tell us what happened?” (To be fair, Peter Jennings was trying to sort through information coming fast and furious and trying to keep his composure while doing it.)

Then came the following exchange:  

Dahler:  “Yes, Peter, it’s Don Dahler down here, I’m four blocks north of the World Trade Center.  The second building that was hit by the plane has just completely collapsed. The entire building has just collapsed, as if a demolition team set off — when you see the old demolitions of these old buildings. 

Unknown speaker: “My God.”

Dahler:  “It came down on itself and it is not there anymore.”

Jennings: “Thanks very much, Dan.”

Dahler: “— completely collapsed.”

Jennings: “The whole side has collapsed?”

Dahler: “The whole building has collapsed.”

Jennings: “The whole building has collapsed?”

Dahler: “The building has collapsed.”

Jennings: “That’s the southern tower you’re talking about.”

Dahler: “Exactly. The second building that we witnessed the airplane enter has been — the top half had been fully involved in flame.  It just collapsed. There is panic on the streets, thousands of people running up Church Street, which is what I’m looking out on, trying to get away.  But the entire — at least as far as I can see, the top half of the building, at least half of it, I can’t see below that — half of it just started with a gigantic rumble, folded in on itself, and collapsed in a huge plume of smoke and dust.”

When the tape was re-racked and Jennings took a look at the building falling, all he could say in reaction was a quiet, “My God.”

I don’t know if there is anything else that someone could say in the face of a 110-story building crumbling to the ground, not because of an accident, but because someone deliberately wanted to do it. 

What do you say when you’re on the air and it’s your job to report the news as you see it and understand it? 

I give both Don Dahler and Peter Jennings kudos for not totally “losing it” on the air; knowing that they had to stay professional and calm, that the country would be taking their cue of how to react from the people they saw on the air. 

In an interview CBS News did with Dahler (then a reporter for CBS) on the 10th anniversary of 9/11, he said that for the next two weeks, he didn’t leave the area, fearing that the police wouldn’t let him back in. 

He remembers the faces and voices of the rescuers, those who dove in head first, the ones who ran upstairs when everyone else was running downstairs. 

He also remembers the faces and voices of people looking for loved ones, the expressions on their faces and in their eyes begging, please, tell me you saw this person alive. Please tell me they’re okay. 

Don Dahler could never answer “yes” to that last question. 

And it’s why he can’t forget it. 

In addition to being a reporter, Dahler has written three novels and a biography, Fearless, about Harriet Quimby, the first American woman to earn a pilot’s license. 

Today, many like myself will take a peek at 9/11 coverage. They may remember all the events and the times they happened: the North Tower hit at 8:46 a.m., the South Tower hit at 9:03 a.m.; the Pentagon hit at 9:37 a.m.; the South Tower collapsing at 9:59 a.m.; the North Tower collapsing at 10:28 a.m. 

Those who lost loved ones will stop and remember.

And those who saw and heard those images and showed us will remember. 

Including Don Dahler, who thought he heard a missile, looked outside . . . and probably reflected the feelings of millions of viewers with his exclamation of, “Oh, my God!” and then repeating, “The whole building has collapsed” to an incredulous world.

Just my .04, adjusted for inflation.

 

So why didn’t God answer my prayer?

 This coming Monday marks the 30th anniversary of my father’s death from ALS. 

Exactly four weeks later, I got married. 

In the years between my dad’s death and now, I’ve kicked myself for not getting married sooner so my father could see me get married and I’ve also been angry at God for allowing my father to die at the time he died. 

Daddy was diagnosed at the end of 1991. I learned of his diagnosis on February 29, 1992. (I even still remember the drive home; I’d had to work that Saturday and I remember taking State Road 826 north in Dade County, Florida; I drove by the Office Depot sign in Hialeah, took my exit, and arrived at my parking lot.) 

The answering machine was flashing when I got home on that February day. It was my mother; I called her back, Daddy answered, saying, I haven’t heard from you in a while; and after a short chat, he handed the phone to Mom . . . who said six words that ended my life as I knew it up to that point. 

“Your father has Lou Gehrig’s disease.”

My reaction: “Oh, my God!” 

We talked for a while, and then after I hung up, I was on the phone for the next hour with my now-husband and my two best friends. 

My husband and I had been dating since 1987. In fact, he proposed on Valentine’s Day 1990; and I was shocked. It was something I had not expected, and after a long conversation, we decided it wasn’t a good time right now. And I believe we made the right decision, because I started developing the disease I have now, interstitial cystitis, and trying to plan a wedding in the middle of navigating my own health struggle would have been difficult. 

When husband proposed again in May of 1993, I accepted. And one of the first things I thought of was, please let my father live long enough to see me get married. 

I prayed for God to heal my father. I prayed for him to live long enough to see me get married. 

Neither of those things happened.  

My sister called me on September 11th and told me that they didn’t think it would be much longer. 

I called my husband after that, in minor hysteria. I called a couple of friends, and friends called me. 

But in the middle of that hysteria, I suddenly had a moment of clarity and said, “But God, if you’re going to take him, take him quickly and please let it be as peaceful as possible.”

That night, I heard the phone ring but didn’t answer it.  I was in bed and didn’t feel like getting the phone. 

Mom called the next morning and told me, “Your Daddy’s gone.” 

I immediately called my husband, who came and said, I’ll either drive you or take you to the airport. You’re not driving alone. (He drove me.)

One of the more surreal experiences of my life was accepting congratulations on my engagement with my father’s coffin around ten feet away. I mean, how do you celebrate what should be a happy time in your life when you are in such close proximity to your father’s body? 

Not only that, I made a phone call from my parents’ house regarding my bridesmaids’ dresses.  I think I may given information over the phone; I know I told them we’d had an emergency in the family. 

The funeral was on September 15. My husband and I left the next day and I immediately plunged back into planning a wedding. That wedding happened on October 9th. On October 11th, a month to the day after my father died, I boarded a plane to Cancun, Mexico, for my honeymoon. 

Since then, like I’ve said above, I’ve wondered why God said “no” to my prayer for “let my dad live long enough to see me get married.” 

In my nastier moments, I wonder if God was just mad and he wanted to punish me for some reason. But when I think about God as being kind, compassionate, and loving, I just can’t see him doing something like this just because he was in a bad mood. 

But if God is kind, compassionate, and loving, why did he let my father die when he did and how he did?

Then I’ve also told myself, you should have gotten married earlier. You should have pushed your husband into having a wedding earlier. 

There were two reasons I didn’t do that: 1. I didn’t think that “letting my dad see me get married” was a good enough reason to push my husband into marriage, and 2. I knew someone who’d been in a similar position - in her case, her mother had cancer and the girl got engaged not too long afterwards - and right after the honeymoon, the girl I knew left her husband. (I’ve since learned that there were other circumstances involving the couple’s relationship that probably led to their divorce.) But at the time, I thought, “So and so got married when her mother was so sick, and look what happened. Do I want to do the same thing?” 

After 30 years, I have no solid answers to, why did God allow all of this to happen the way it did and how it did? The only solid answer I really have is: I don’t know. 

The longer I am a Christian, the more I believe that the most humble and honest answer I can give to the question, why did God let this happen? is, “I don’t know.” I can come up with the Christian cliches of, “God needed another angel in heaven,” or, “It must have been God’s will,” or, “At least he’s in a better place.” I can give the broad answer of, trials come to increase our faith, to prove that our faith is genuine, etc. But the specific answer of “why this trial, why now?” I don’t know. 

I can tell you that from the time my father was diagnosed until he died, I never heard him complain or feel sorry for himself. He never talked about being sick with me. He had to leave teaching, and when I asked if he regretted not teaching, he said, “No. It was getting pretty bad.” (I didn’t blame him for feeling that way.)

The last time I visited, in August of 1993, I had written down the directions from my parents’ home in St. Petersburg to the hotel I was having everyone stay in. I had asked my father’s younger brother, my Uncle Jerry, to give me away if Daddy couldn’t. His answer:  “I’d be honored.” Uncle Jerry would end up driving my mother and sister to Miami.

Getting them down to Miami would be the easy part. 

Getting them to the hotel would be the hard part. 

It took me one full paragraph to get them through a particular portion of Freeway Hell known as the Golden Glades Interchange, where the following highways merge:  Interstate 95, State Road 826, State Road 9, Florida’s Turnpike, and NW 167th Street. So I was writing, this is the sign you will see, this is the lane you need to get in, this is the turn you will have to make.

When I showed the directions to my dad - who, by this time, had lost all power of speech - his eyes widened and he pulled the paper away from his face.

I burst out laughing. Because even though my father couldn’t talk, the expression on his face said everything. “All that?” 

The very last time I saw him, he was taking a nap and I was debating, do I go wake him up and tell him that I’m leaving to go back to Miami, or do I not disturb him? I’ll feel bad if I wake him up . . . but if I don’t go in there and it turns out I should have . . .

So I went into the bedroom, told Daddy good-bye, he gave me a hug, and when I walked out of the room, I said, “That’s the last time I’ll see my father alive.”

He would die in that bedroom about two weeks later. 

I am fortunate to have one of my last memories of my dad be a happy one. 

I am also fortunate to have his example of not complaining, although I hope he was at least able to talk to Mom. 

So why did God let my dad die when he did and how he did? 

I don’t know. 

The one conclusion I have come to in 30 years is that God is God, I am not, and I will not know until I ask God directly why he allowed things to happen the way they did. I jokingly refer to this as my “beef with God”. 

But God is still God. Even when a prayer does not get answered in the way you wanted it to be. 

God is God, even when your dad dies before your wedding, even when you feel cheated by the fact he never gave you away at your wedding; even when you realize he did not see his other daughter’s remarriage, even when you know that he has two grandchildren that he will never know . . . God is God. 

Right now, my answer to “why didn’t God answer my prayer?” is, “God is God, he is in charge. I am not.”

And I pray that I will remember that.

Just my .04, adjusted for inflation. 

The Scoop on Scrupe

Merriam-Webster’s Dictionary defines “scrupulosity” as “the quality or state of being scrupulous”; “scrupulous” being defined as “having moral integrity, acting in strict regard for what is considered right or proper, punctiliously exact, painstaking.”

I, along with several thousand others, can add one more part to that definition:

“A manifestation of obsessive-compulsive disorder concerning all things religious that makes the sufferer’s life a living hell.”

My name is Tina, and I am scrupulous. 

While I do hope I have moral integrity, and I can be punctiliously exact and painstaking, depending on the task (I’m a proofreader, and being scrupulous is important there), I also have OCD that often manifests itself into scrupulosity, and it does make my life a living hell at times. 

The International OCD Foundation (iocdf.org) defines scrupulosity as “a form of obsessive compulsive disorder involving religious or moral obsessions. Scrupulous individuals are overly concerned that something they thought or did might be a sin or other violation of religious or moral doctrine.” Symptoms includ excessive concerns about blasphemy, having committed a sin, behaving morally, purity, going to hell, death, a loss of impulse control. Compulsions can include: excessive trips to confession, repeatedly seeking reassurance from religious leader and loved ones, repeated cleanings and purifying rituals, acts of self-sacrifice, avoiding situations where they believe a religious or moral error could be especially likely or cause something i bad to happen. Mental compulsions could include excessive praying (sometimes with the emphasis on the prayer needed to be perfect), repeating passages from sacred scripture in one’s head; making pacts with God.

I can relate.

The OCD I deal with is called “pure O”, the obsessive, intrusive thoughts without the compulsive actions; or at least obvious compulsive actions. I believe I’ve had this since I was about 14, when swear words started dropping into my head. I’m not a fan of swearing; but having said that, I have let loose with certain swear words on occasion. I had my first real bout of depression at around 14 as well, just a very deep sadness that I was drowning in. 

The scrupulosity began during a church service, where, out of the blue, I took the name of the Lord in vain in my head. I was horrified. I mean, this was church, and one of the Ten Commandments is, thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain! So I quickly said a prayer:  “Dear God, I did this! I’m so sorry! Please forgive me and help me not to do it again. In Jesus’ name I pray, Amen.”

Can you guess what happened after I said the prayer?

If you guessed, “she thought the word again,” you’d be right. 

I’m about to turn 60, and the intrusive thoughts have been with me for around 45 years now. I struggle with shame around what I call “the thoughts”. It was not until a couple of decades ago that I did a Google search on “the thoughts” and I discovered not only the subject of pure O, I discovered the subject of scrupulosity. It took me longer to admit that, this is me, I think this is what I have. 

I’ve been in counseling off and on since I’ve been in my 20’s. Every time I go, I peel off another onion layer. The woman I’m currently seeing has expertise in OCD, and together we’ve been talking about thoughts. 

I grew up in a church environment where I absorbed that thinking about something was just as bad as doing it; so you’d better not be even thinking about sex, cuss words, or other sinful things. Sex was something you didn’t even think about until you were married, because thinking about having sex was a sin (the same as lust.) Hearing swear words and reading swear words were bad, so you needed to avoid scenes where there was a lot of swearing, do not read books with a lot of swearing (I even tried to mark out swear words in a book I was reading) and do not look at the screen when there is a sex scene in a movie and/or on TV!

In my opinion, all of that backfired on me. Because even though I could stay away from certain media, it didn’t stop the swearing and other thoughts from running around in my head. And in college, I don’t think it helped that the church I was part of emphasized doing everything “right”. It was camouflaged as “doing it by the Bible”, but it came off as, if you don’t do such and such, or if you don’t do such and such in this particular way, you’re going to hell. And you were asked about actions such as, did you have a quiet time (a period of prayer and Bible study) every day? What are you studying? How many people have you invited to church? Why didn’t you invite more people to church or Bible study? Where are your visitors? Then the ultimate question:  Do you love God? Well, if you did, you’d be doing this, this, and this. 

There’s also a group of opinion leaders in my group of believers that believe in something called “precision obedience,” meaning, God has exact requirements and he expects you to fulfill them exactly. (I looked up that phrase a while back and the subject that came up the most was . . . dog training.) 

So, when performance is emphasized, and nothing is ever good enough, that produces an environment ripe for scrupe to develop. Did I do enough? Did I do it right? What if I didn’t do it right? I’d better ask someone to tell me if I did it right or not. The Bible says such-and-such, but does it really mean that? I’d better look up the original languages, the context, and the original audiences. But what if I get those wrong, too? God is pure and holy and he demands that I do certain things in certain ways. Will he send me to hell if I get his requirements wrong? I remembered something that happened when I was 10 and I got angry about it? Have I not confessed that sin to God, because I’m still angry? Have I not really forgiven because I’m angry about what happened? God demands that you forgive or he won’t forgive you. So if you haven’t forgiven, you won’t be forgiven. Did I just sin? I’d better pray now to be forgiven because if I don’t say I’m sorry and ask to be forgiven, and I die in that sin, I’ll end up going to hell. I read swear words in a book. Did I pollute my mind? There was a bunch of cussing in a movie; but I really liked the movie. Did I sin? And oh my gosh, you just thought a big bunch of swear words. Hurry and ask for forgiveness! 

It is exhausting living like this. It’s why I say that scrupe is its own living hell. It keeps me in a state of constant anxiety of “getting it wrong and going to hell”. 

So what do you do? Is there any hope?

One recommendation is, “just let the thought be. A thought is a thought is a thought. It’s dwelling on that thought that may get you into trouble.” 

So sometimes I will go, “hmm, interesting,” when a bad thought comes up. Or I may think, “That sounds like a good idea. Let me try it in ten minutes.” When the ten minutes are up, I’ve usually forgotten about the thought or decided, I don’t want to act on the thought. I read an idea that I’ve put into practice: give your OCD a name you don’t like. So, with apologies to all the people with the following names:  My OCD is Hubert, my depression is Elmer, my anxiety is Agnes, and my inner bully/critic is Bertha. They have signed an oath in blood to make my life miserable. They especially like to come to church with me. So I’ll say stuff like, “You go sit on the end of the pew while I listen to the sermon.” This past Sunday I told them to go sit in the balcony. With certain thoughts, I’ll take the idea to a ridiculous extreme.  That appeals to my sense of humor and reduces the power of the thoughts over me. 

Scrupe is not easy. It is a mental disorder that, as I mentioned before, puts the sufferer through a living hell. My counselor has told me that OCD latches on to the worst fear you can have and multiplies it. I wish my OCD fed on pictures of puppies or kittens or beautiful nature scenes or funny movies. Instead, it decides to feed on fears of “getting Christianity wrong and being punished for it.” 

I do not know of a “cure” for OCD that will stop the obsessions. Some people do use medication. What I am using is cognitive behavioral therapy; a “rewiring” of my thoughts, so to speak. 

And I also remind myself that God is a good God, slow to anger, abounding in love and forgiveness. I think he understands OCD, depression, etc. I don’t understand why I have to deal with mental illness and I would like to be healed. God, in his sovereignty, has not chosen to do so right now. 

In the meantime, I and my fellow scrupes continue to navigate this condition, this attack on the brain, knowing that we will never do it “right” and “perfectly” and learning to be content with our imperfection.

Just my .04, adjusted for inflation.

Lessons taught, lessons caught

It's been about two decades since my husband and I visited a Sunday School class while we were on vacation. 

I'm sure the teacher, as all good Sunday School teachers do, spent plenty of time preparing his lessons in hopes that his class would appreciate it and that they'd also participate. 

Unfortunately, I don't remember a single point of his lesson.

I do, however, remember that he spent the first five to ten minutes of class explaining who their church was and was not in fellowship with. 

The lesson I caught that day was not, I'm sure, the lesson that the teacher taught. 

Contrast that with a church service I attended some weeks ago. 

The minister of this congregation prefers to travel around the front of the church rather than staying firmly planted behind the pulpit. On this day, he was standing in the aisle, preaching, when a toddler came up to him saying, "Here," and holding out a piece of paper he'd drawn on. 

To be honest, I was thinking, where is this kid's mom? and expecting the minister to tell the kid, "not right now!"

Instead, he stopped, sat down on the floor, looked at the picture, asked the child a few questions, and then said, "Thank you!" 

And continued the sermon from where he'd left off. 

I'm embarrassed to say that I don't remember very much about the sermon that was preached. 

But I remember very well the lesson that was caught and not necessarily the lesson that was taught. 

It makes me wonder:  What are we teaching, and what are the people around us catching? 

Good question.

Just my .04, adjusted for inflation.