story4307.xml

story4307.xml

born-digital

story

yes

no

2002-09-11

I was in my condo in Utah and I was getting ready to go to school. I was a senior at Brigham Young University and was not totally acclamated to the United States culture as I had recently returned from a mission in Santiago Chile where I had lived for a year and a half. Things that are commonplace to normal Americans were still very much a luxury to me. My friend called me and alerted me to the intensity of the news at which time I moved to the television where I could see the events. As a political science major, a plethora of events rushed to mind but I remember the one thing that permeated my being is that there must be a reason.
I went to my first class of the morning, Constitutional Law. My professor was there but seemed to be too dumbstruck to teach us. He said the most profound thing that I could have imagined him say. He said "I am a political scientist but I can not imagine myself teaching the theory behind politics when history is making something even the finest political minds could not have predicted."
I went to a commons area at the university where thousands of students stood in an erie silence as they watched and listened to the news. I listened as classmates of mine called home to DC or virginia, just getting the news and hoping all was well and I realized how grateful I was that I live in a nation where family still means something, where we really could stand shoulder to shoulder, and where I had the religious freedom to attend a christian university where we are still allowed to say one nation under God. I know that as long as we maintain that brotherhood that inspired men wrote into our constitution, we will maintain the strength that only love and unity can bring to this nation. I know this because I have lived abroad and I have seen what happens when brotherly love ceases. I am thankful that God was brought so much more prominently into our hearts and lives as a nation. I hope it will not fade.