Two Other Towers

I was working at the school on 9/11 when the planes hit the towers.  Like most of America, I was stunned by what I saw.  I couldn't wrap my head around it.  Later, as the towers collapsed upon themselves, it was as if someone had hit me in the stomach: I felt sick.

Most of the teachers had their classroom televisions on that morning once the world spread about what was transpiring.  Because I was the school counselor, I was visiting the classrooms, comforting staff and students alike.  The news broadcasts kept replaying the iconic moment when the plane hit the second tower.  Over and over again, the scene dominated the airwaves.  I watched the children.  each time the plane hit, I could see them flinch, terror on their faces.

I hadn't visited many rooms before I became aware that when these young children watched that plane explode into the building, what they were perceiving was a separate plane hitting a separate building, as if the entire nation was under attack.  Little children do not have the cognitive ability to understand that this was the same picture being shown multiple times: to them it was multiple attacks.  I talked to our principal and we quickly agreed to call each classroom and to tell the teachers to turn off their television sets.  I wrote a memo to the teachers explaining the cognitive development of their students and took them around personally. 

Later that night, a child psychologist on a TV news show told the parents of America the same thing.  Even adults needed to check the news once in the morning and once in the evening, then turn off the TV and take care of those things over which they had both control and responsibility.  Those who didn't were soon mired - some almost crippled - by depression and despair.

Reading the Book of Revelation could create the same experience, and, I suspect, does for a lot of people.  Perhaps that is why so many of us avoid it.  Yet while the plagues and destruction are described by many different symbols, the common themes remain the same: God will ultimately win.  Those who choose to stand with Him will be saved.  The wicked will be destroyed, in many cases by the natural consequences of the fact that "wickedness never was happiness." (Alma 41:10) Systems built on evil and yoked with Satan and Babylon will share their fate.

What can I control?  I can control where I choose to stand and how I choose to live.  I can choose the God I worship.  I can choose to love and serve Him and to love and serve His children.  That is what I can control.  What can you control?

Text copyright Gebara Education March 2013

 

Picture of twin towers from www.whitegadget.com