Two weeks before I left New York, I drove a group of staff members 2 hours out of camp down to Crossgates Mall in the capital of New York state - Albany. I had not been in a movie theater all summer, so I decided to cough up the NINE DOLLARS AND SEVENTY-FIVE CENTS to catch a flick. I saw World Trade Center - it was worth it.
The movie does not really focus on the evil that was done that day - the collapse of the twin towers happens within the first twenty minutes of the movie. The bulk of the movie tells the true story of two Port Authority policemen, Jimeno and McLaughlin, who were trapped under the wreckage and later rescued (They were 2 of 20 people who were pulled from the rubble alive.) The movie is not over-the-top heroic or wildly overdramatized - it tells the tale of these two men's fight for survival. The story cuts between two two men buried under the rubble, fighting to stay awake and alive, and their wives back in their homes, struggling to find meaning and peace in a world gone wrong. As I relieved the events of September 11th, 2001, my soul was burdened once more with the utter evil, misunderstanding and broken depravity of the world in which we live. So many were torn so violently from this mortal coil that day - so many gone, with their families left only with the frayed ends of bittersweet memories.
One of the most powerful scenes for me occurs when McLaughlin, a man whose job at the police department had created distance between himself and his wife over 20 years, has an imaginary conversation with his spouse. At this point, he has been buried for what had seemed like an eternity, and he was on the verge of death. As the image of his beautiful wife swam in his vision, he spoke this question into the darkness: "Did I love you enough? Did I love you the way I was supposed to?"
This summer in the teen ministry at Camp-Of-The-Woods, our overarching theme for the summer came out of the words of Jesus, when asked about the greatest commandment in the law:
"'Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.' This is the first and greatest commandment." (Matthew 22:37-38)
The reality is that most of us will not face death trapped until countless tons of shattered glass and steel, but the heavy blanket of death will one day lay upon us all. And as our vision shrinks, only one question will matter: "Did I love you enough? Did I love you at all?" It is our greatest commandment and our highest calling to love GOD, but as broken people, we so often forget what really matters. The real question is this - when death holds us in it's grip, will we regret? True love is a choice, and in the end it is all that is important. And it is a choice, indeed - a choice which we much choose to make every day. As Russell Crowe said in Gladiator, "Death smiles at us all - The only thing that we can do is smile back."
And smile we can and will, because we know that death holds no power over us now - it is but a thin veil that separates us from an eternal life, an eternal treasure that no thief can steal and no moth can eat away. For most of us the question is not just, "What if you don't wake up tommorow?", but "What if you do?" My hope and prayer is that I will one day be able to say as the Apostle Paul did,
"I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith. Henceforth there is laid up for me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous judge, will award to me on that Day, and not only to me but also to all who have LOVED his appearing." (2 Timothy 4:7-8, emphasis mine)
I want to live without regrets - I want love you wholeheartedly every day, for the rest of my life. Lord, let me stay close by your side, to abide in your love and bring you glory, so that when death smiles at me, I can smile back. See you soon.
"Simon son of John, do you truly love me more than these?" (John 21:15)
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