once and never again

United 93 was one of those movies that everyone needs to see once and never again. I rank it up there with The Passion and Schindler's List. All are brutal and dramatizations of real, gut-wrenching events. We have to see those things to remember that life isn't all about our new cool stuff, our jobs, or an argument over what kind of pizza toppings to order. Life can be dark, unfair, and out of our control. Pain happens. It's a part of what we have to experience to be human beings.

American culture shelters us from a lot of that. We medicate ourselves from all kinds of emotional and physical pain with drugs, food, sex, relationships, entertainment, exercise--distraction. But to be really human, sometimes we just have to feel the anguish with those passengers calling their loved ones to say last goodbyes. With Jews in concentration camps burying the fetid bodies of their friends. With Christ being flogged for no sin of His own.

That's why I drove home from the movie without the phone on or any music playing. I wanted to sit with that pain for a little while. I cried out to God about why something like 9.11 happened. I remembered that my anguish wasn't new--that the Bible records the pain of many, many people who asked why. And I thanked God that my little moment of pain took me back to Him.