Earlier this week I had the great honor of attending the screening of an international film, The Day With No End, at the 9/11 Memorial and Museum in New York City.  Directed by Alistair Morrison, the film centers around the survivors still grappling with the events of that day, as well as the long term health ramifications resulting from being at Ground Zero.

The film’s power lies not in the apocalyptic photos of September 11th, but in its understated but provocative imagery, and the stories and conversations that flow from the survivors of that day. While grief and guilt remain, the themes of resilience and redemption that emerge offer a dawn’s light of hope often lost in the remembrance of that day.

The film’s central motif revolves around a woman whose son answered the call of duty as a firefighter – and never came home.

““The two most important days in your life are the day you are born and the day you find out why.” This quote, attributed to Mark Twain, frames the undercurrent of the documentary.  It calls forth these fundamental questions:

• Why do we so easily lose sight of the eternal by getting caught up in the mundane?
• Are we living out the purpose God has given us on this earth? Do we even know what that purpose is?
• If death occurs not just by illness, accident and natural disaster, but also through ideology, are we willing to recognize, call out, and combat it?

Perhaps the pervading question in all of this is, when was the last time we prayed the prayer, “Teach me to number my days”?*

Twenty-five years later, that deadly day seems more real and more recent than ever. The stories continue to emerge of the trifling things that ended up sparing a single life: heading down to the lobby because a contractor forgot his security clearance; arriving late because of an unexpected detour; the impulse to take the elevator to the lobby to grab one more coffee.

Death comes for all. But “He must reign until He has put all of His enemies under His feet. The last enemy to be abolished is death” (1 Corinthians 15:25-26)

Always, always the heart’s cry speaks, may a God awareness fall upon all of us.

*Psalm 90:12