It felt like any other, normal Tuesday morning. I started my day by flipping on the TV and stumbling into the kitchen to make my morning coffee. Glancing out of the window, I noticed that the sky was a brilliant blue on that brisk day in September. From my kitchen, I could hear the morning news coming from my little TV in the front room. The voices of the news anchors were unusually solemn. Matt Lauer was saying something about a plane crash at The World Trade Center in New York City. I eventually wandered into the front room of my little apartment, and to my amazement, I saw on the television screen a smoldering tower with a very large, fiery hole in the side of it. I was a bit puzzled at what I saw, namely because I had been taking flying lessons at the time, and I thought to myself, rather condescendingly, “What kind of idiot pilot couldn’t avoid hitting that huge building on such a clear day?” Not giving it a second thought, and minutes before the second plane hit the other tower, I switched off the TV and left for school.

Oklahoma City Community College, where I was teaching in 2001, is situated literally across the interstate from a major, international airport. When I arrived at school that morning, the parking lot was all but deserted. Not knowing what to expect, I went inside, and immediately sensed that an ominous fear was mounting. I was met with panic and bewilderment as my colleagues and some students were learning of the unthinkable details as they unfolded. We began learning that radical terrorists were overtaking and weaponizing passenger airplanes. Shortly thereafter, the growing concern at the college prompted an evacuation of the building, due to its proximity to the airport. As I drove home, I remember feeling helpless, and that the world was unravelling. I don’t remember in my lifetime ever being more frightened than I was on that fateful day, September 11, 2001.

For those of us who remember, the memories of those events are as vivid as they get. Terrifying and heightened emotions, such as those experienced on 9/11, burn painful memories into your physiology. As I contemplated the music for this Sunday, I came to the conclusion that the best way to acknowledge the solemnity of 9/11, is to play a postlude that won’t recall sadness, but will restore hope. No-one wants to live through that kind of fear again. With all of the heaviness that we see in the so-called news these days, I have decided that I, personally, have had enough hopelessness. My choice was to play something that will make you smile, and will help you to focus on being grateful, not only to be a citizen of this country, but to be a resident of planet earth itself.

John Philip Sousa wrote this march on Christmas Day, 1896 whilst on a cruise liner, returning from a European vacation. He had just learned of the death of a friend, a man called David Blakely, who was the manager of the Sousa Band at the time. Rather than writing something sad and somber, Sousa composed this jaunty march – perhaps to lighten the weight of his own grief.

Years later, when they still had circus bands in the early 20^th century, I read that this march was used as a disaster signal. When the band played Stars and Stripes Forever it was an emergency code to the circus staff, that something had gone dreadfully wrong, and that the crowd was to be evacuated from the arena. There are reports of this happening in the newspaper, from the Hartford Circus fire of 1944. In 1987, an act of Congress made this piece the official march of The United States of America.

I was surprised to learn that Sousa wrote this when he was grieving over the death of a friend. I was even more surprised to learn it was used as a code for an emergency, an aid to save precious lives. So, I think it’s befitting as a postlude on this, a National Day of Remembrance. Maybe to you, it’s an emergency signal. Or it’s a way to lighten the weight of so much grief, all around us. Or it’s a way to help you feel hopeful again. Whatever the case may be, tragedies are sad, but they can never keep us from being inspired to help, from feeling free to hope, or from experiencing the transformative love of God. Sometimes it takes tragedy to help us see how precious human life is, even those that believe, look, and think differently than we do. I’ve chosen to play this because I want to see beauty from the ashes. I didn’t want to play something about the ashes themselves, the world already has enough of that. At least, I hope so. Soli deo Gloria!