Maybe the Greatest Truth of All

We went to see the movie, World Trade Center, yesterday. Due to the nature of the events it depicts, it is not a movie that anyone would be excited about going to see. I really didn’t even want to go. But it is a movie we all need to see and I'm glad I went yesterday.

The message of the movie is one of the great truths of life. In the big scheme of things, it may be the greatest truth of all.

All of us remember right where we were and what we were doing when we learned about the events of September 11, 2001. I vividly remember being in my office talking on the telephone with one of my funeral home managers. He paused in the middle of our conversation and finally said that he thought a plane had crashed into one of the Twin Towers in New York City. As I continued to talk on the phone I walked around my desk and grabbed the remote and clicked the television on in my office. I have no idea what that conversation was about and I really don’t remember what I did the rest of that week other than being glued to the television watching those incredible events unfold before our eyes.

I will never forget what I saw and what I felt.



I experienced so many emotions. I was boiling with anger that these crazies would kill so many innocent people in the name of religion. I was brought to tears at the loss of life and the people affected by those losses. I was anxious and depressed thinking about our future as a country not only financially but in the uncertainty that we were about to begin a war where there was no defined enemy.

But I was also proud. I was proud to be an American. The hair stood on my head when I saw all the flags that everybody started flying. I saw patriotism in our country that I had never seen.

But I also was inspired by the men and women of the New York Police Department and the New York Fire Department and all the other agencies and volunteers who were on that scene risking (and losing) their lives to save others.

There were incredible acts of heroism and the acts I saw greatly influenced my life.

The truth is there has always been evil in our world and it will continue on as long as we live. It will always have devastating affects on our lives. Of course we all wish the world could be devoid of it.

But the lesson is man could never rise to his greatest potential in the absence of it. In the absence of evil there would be no need for good.

In the end, the good that man does as a result of an evil act is far more powerful than the evil act. We all saw that as we watched the events of September 11, 2001 unfold before our eyes. And I was reminded of it yesterday.

"Greater love has no one than this, that he lay down his life for his friends."

That is the message of the movie, World Trade Center.

It also happens to be the message of the Bible.