Keep Rage Alive

Remember this?
Carmen Taylor - KHBS/KHOG TV	Rich Lipski - Washington Post
What about this?
Spencer Platt - Getty Images	Jeff Christensen - Reuters
Surely you remember this.
Jose Jimenez, Primera Hora - Getty Images	Jose Jimenz, Primera Hora - Getty Images
Don't tell me you've forgotten this.
Amy Sancetta - AP	Doug Kanter - AP
Or this.
Stuart Ramson - AP
And may God have mercy on your lost soul if you've forgotten this.
AP	Shannon Stapleton - Reuters

I listen to a Christian radio station every morning on my way to work. I am a Christian, but that's not why I listen. The other Phoenix radio stations all have infantile and sophomoric morning shows that annoy me, and the Christian station plays some music, gives me weather and traffic information, and generally leaves me alone.

So I'm driving to work yesterday, and the DJ says that they've got some special programming the next few days to commemorate the 9/11 anniversary. Among other activities, the station is going to read various Bible passages that offer encouragement, and hope, and comfort. The station is operating on the assumption that its listeners need encouragement, hope, and comfort.

They might - I hope not. We've been wallowing in grief and self-pity for a year now. Enough is enough. Rather than New Testament sweetness and light, I say it's time for some Old Testament wrath and fury.

I posted the photos above not because I think anyone has forgotten what happened a year ago, but to remind you of how you felt when you first saw these and other images on your TV. Shock and grief, sure. At first. But then it gave way to something else, didn't it? You experienced some old-fashioned, thundering, righteous anger. I know I did - that whole Tuesday afternoon, as I watched the horrible images on TV, I was pissed.

That's what I want you to remember. Remember who it was that murdered 3,000 Americans. Remember who it was that forced innocents to murder others. Remember that these terrorists are monsters who must be defeated. Remember that there is no compromise with people who wish to destroy you. Remember that we have no choice but to fight these people - words of appeasement will not give us victory. Keep the rage alive and remember how you love America, and are willing to fight and die for her if necessary.

So that's my message on this anniversary eve. Pray and grieve for the victims and their families - for a while. But that won't keep America safe. That won't win this war against terror.

My Christian radio station quoted two verses from the Psalms this morning, a nice comforting passage about God's protection from evil, to which I say Amen. But I think another passage is also fitting.

Arise, O Lord, in your anger;
Rise up against the rage of my enemies.
Awake, my God; decree justice.