Several weeks ago we started the series on "Involuntary Transition." It comes to an end today. When we started we had no idea that we would end it on the day after one of the most traumatic attacks on America during the history of our republic. For the people involved in the simultaneous tragedies in New York, Washington and Pennsylvania, the transition in their lives was not only involuntary, it was swift, traumatic, violent and unexpected. Perhaps some of our thoughts about dealing with involuntary transition will apply to folks whose lives have forever been altered by the devious acts of terrorists.

We wrote a second article describing some of our feelings about the tragedy and what it may mean for the lives of those of us who are still in the world and not directly affected by the terror that was unleashed on the world on Tuesday morning.

Norman and Ann

When we are confronted with involuntary transition, we often speak of waiting for things to get back to normal. That's probably not going to happen. Our idea of "what's normal" was obliterated by the transition itself. You have to think about a "new normal." How do you accept the loss of "normality" and begin the process of working toward a new normal? Here are some suggestions.

1. Deepen your relationship with God. You may be confused about circumstances. God is not confused at all. He will not abandon you in your time of crisis. The Psalmist wrote, "O Lord, you have searched me and you know me. You know when I sit and when I rise, you perceive my thoughts from afar. You discern my going out and my lying down; you are familiar with all my ways." (Psalm 139:1-3).

2. Put the past behind you. You can't change anything that happened in the past. It's good to accept responsibility for your actions but it doesn't help anything to beat yourself over the head with the mistakes you've made. David sinned grievously and it cost him greatly. After his son died and he realized the enormity of both his sin and his loss, the Biblical text says that he " . . .washed, put on lotions and changed his clothes." He worshipped and " . . .went to his own house and then at his own request, they served him food and he ate" (2 Samuel 12:20).

3. You need to spend time with safe people, trusted friends. When Jesus was about to go to the cross, he chose to spend time with Peter, James and John - his close friends.

4. Reject the temptation to allow yourself to be bitter. When your involuntary transition took place because others acted in an arbitrary and prejudicial manner, you will want to project yourself from further heart by allowing yourself to become hardened and embittered. Perhaps you'll decide you'll never trust anyone again. You're not going to let anyone hurt you as much as this person has. Perhaps you'll protect yourself from further hurt, but you'll also drive those away who want to genuinely love you and that's simply too big a price to pay.

5. Work at developing a constructive frame of mind. Paul wrote the letter to the Philippians from a prison cell. Not only did he have to deal with unfair incarceration, he was forced to accept the bitter truth that some of his fellow preachers tried to make trouble for him while he was under arrest (Philippians 1:17). He didn't dwell on that. He concentrated on more positive things. "Finally brothers, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable - if anything is excellent or praiseworthy - think about such things" (Philippians 4:8)

You may be entering into a phase of involuntary transition. You may not choose whether you are well or sick, employed or unemployed, prosperous or poor. However you are never without choice. You choose your attitude.

NORMAN:

For me September 11, 2001 started like most other days. I showered, shaved, dressed and read the paper while I ate a bagel for breakfast. I walked to the car. The morning air was cool and crisp in sharp contrast to last week's high temperatures and uncomfortable humidity. It takes about eleven minutes to drive from our house to work. I normally listen to a news station on the car radio during that eleven-minute drive. The main topic of conversation was the previous night's NFL game between the Denver Broncos and the New York Giants. Denver won the game but lost their leading receiver for the season. The only news from New York City reported on baseball's Roger Clemens' chances of winning his 20th game of the season. Shortly before I arrived at work, I heard a reporter say, "This just in. A plane has crashed into the World Trade Center in New York City." I immediately thought it a tragic event, but I assumed that an airplane probably lost power on takeoff. I recalled having flown out of La Guardia several years ago. I remembered the pilot banked sharply immediately after takeoff and it seemed like we barely missed the tall buildings. I was ready to blame engine failure.

A few minutes after I arrived at the office, we received a telephone call informing us there had been two planes. We found a television set and found it hard to move from the set over the next hour and a half. I sat stunned as I watched the first building collapse. In a short while, the second building collapsed. In the meantime there were other targets. My morning wasn't very productive.

ANN:

I took pain medication last night because I'm dealing with a shoulder injury. Norman slipped out of the house early and I slept later than usual. I vaguely remember hearing the ringing of the telephone. The fourth time Norman called, I answered the phone and he told me about the crash at the World Trade Center. At first I thought Norman was setting me up with one of his bad jokes. Then I realized he wouldn't joke about something like this. I got dressed and spent the rest of the day trying to absorb the events that had taken place.

BOTH:

It dawned on us that we were seeing a day unlike anything that has ever happened in our country. We will remember the events of September 11, 2001 as long as we live. We've been thinking about the way these events impact family life and we want to share some of our thoughts.

Almost immediately, our first thoughts involved our family. Our children live in four different states. It really hurt being so far away from them at this time. We wanted to be together. Our oldest son serves his country in the United States Army and is assigned to Air Defense Artillery. We were concerned about the country and its future. We're concerned about the families who read our newsletter. When you have a tragedy of this magnitude, it touches the lives of so many people. We feel sure that many of our readers (maybe all of us in one way or another) will find our lives impacted by the tragedy.

We don't have any sage advice to offer, but we do have some very deep-seated feelings that we want to share. They will be stated at random and without connection to each other.

• God is good even when we don't understand what's happening. Life on this earth is not fair. Good is not always rewarded; evil is not always punished in this life. We think about the prophets. We think about Jesus' death on the cross. We think about the stoning of Stephen. Hebrews 11 describes some of God's faithful people who were tortured, flogged, stoned, sawed in two, destitute and mistreated among other things. They did not receive God's blessings in this life. The Hebrew writer concluded "God had planned something better for us so that only together with us would they be made perfect" (verse 40). Even though we know these things and believe them, we still find it hard to understand. We don't understand the mentality of people who would do such a thing. We may wonder why God did not restrain them. Whatever we wonder, we trust in the goodness of God.

• It's important to love your family now. We can visualize family members dropping their loved ones off at the airport on Monday morning, not realizing their "good bye" hugs would be the last ones they would ever give. Worse yet, we can visualize a hot argument between family members during breakfast. In our minds we picture an angry husband leaving the table abruptly, reaching for his brief case and we can hear him say, "We'll settle this when I get back from Los Angeles." Perhaps he thought the discussion over on his trip to the airport and said to him himself, "I'll call her from the hotel in L.A and apologize. I'll tell her how much I love her and how empty my world would be without her." He had no way of knowing that he would never reach Los Angeles. It's important to love your "loved ones " now. If you haven't hugged your spouse or your children today, don't let the opportunity pass. Do it as soon as you can.

• We must not allow ourselves to hate. We belong to a group of people who are rapidly vanishing from the earth - those who remember World War II. In school, we were taught to hate the German and Japanese people. Some of the things we heard in those days sound ludicrous with the passage of time. For example, we were told that Japanese people were of inferior intelligence. Fear and hate were so rampant that American citizens were placed in concentration camps because they were of Japanese ancestry. Hate is irrational and unproductive. We must not allow ourselves to because suspicious and prejudicial.

• We never know what the future will bring. Near the end of Paul's first letter to the church in Thessalonica, he said, " . . . the day of the Lord will come like a thief in the night. While people say "peace and safety," destruction will come on them suddenly, as labor pains on a pregnant woman and they will not escape." (1 Thessalonians 5:2-3). Of course Paul wasn't writing about airplane crashes, but his language reminds us of how drastically our lives can be changed in an instant. From this time on, we will think of September 11, 2001 and how it marked changes in our lives. Maybe we should have seen it coming, but most of us didn't. We are wise to keep ourselves in a state of spiritual readiness at all times.

• We must not give in to despair. We were children on December 7, 1941. We had just recently started to school. We lived in a time of fear and anxiety. We didn't have television, but we remember hearing the 1940's equivalent of Tom Brokaw. He was a radio newscaster named Gabriel Heatter. He gave us the war news. Almost every night he would say, "There's b-a-a-d news tonight." Heatter was not exaggerating. The news was bad. In fact it was worse than he said it was. We now know the government manipulated the casualty statistics. Somehow the country got through those bad times. It was painful and victory was costly. A banner was hung on the wall at our school. Every time an ex-student of our school went to war, a blue star was added to the banner. Sometimes the blue star was replaced with a gold star and everybody knew exactly what that mean. The gold star was placed there to honor those who gave their lives in the war. Ours was a small school, but there were several gold stars. In the end, however, our way of life prevailed over the schemes of power-mad dictators. Tom Brokaw put a label on those people. He called them The Greatest Generation. They didn't give in to despair and neither should we. We have the opportunity to rise above the madness that gives rise to terrorism. In the process we have the opportunity to work together with our fellow citizens and focus our attention on a better way of living.

The events of September 11, 2001 and the pain they caused so many is still utmost in our thoughts and prayers. Did you stop and ask yourself the question "Where is God at a time like this." Many people did and will continue to ask that question for a long time. Norman has chosen an incident from the scriptures that will, hopefully in some small way, give us an answer or at least something to think about. Please read his thoughts