Putting tragedy in God's hands

By RON COLE
VINDICATOR STAFF WRITER
Suicide terrorists slamming jetliners into buildings in horrific balls of fire. People leaping to their deaths. Skyscrapers tumbling. Americans watching it unfold live on television.
A day like no other.
But not to Mark Jackson.
"Sept. 11th happens every day," said Jackson, 21, of Hubbard, a junior at Youngstown State University.
"When I think of Sept. 11, I think of tragedy. Tragedy does not have to be somebody's bomb coming down and, bang, you're gone.
"Tragedy can be the fact that drugs are killing our young people. Tragedy can be that mothers and fathers cannot stay at home with their kids because they don't have enough finances at home to take care of them. Tragedy can be that people are hungry and out on the streets.
"We're so busy building up our Army with billions of dollars, but we can't build our families. The enemy is attacking our families. Once we teach our children how to behave in schools, teach our children how to respect grown-ups, when we teach our children how to not be lazy, when we start with the families, then you'll see our cities start to get better, then our states will start to get better, and then our nation will start getting better.
"But it first has to be an individual thing."
As part of The Vindicator's coverage of the six-month anniversary of the September terrorist attacks, Jackson and five other members of the YSU Gospel Choir gathered around a small table in a classroom in Bliss Hall to talk about the aftermath of that terrifying day.
The group included Jackson, Jimmie Rodgers, Lloyd Pearson IV, Will Whitaker, LaNaile Rainey and Robinette Cotton.
In a 90-minute conversation before the choir's weekly rehearsal, the four men and two women, many holding Bibles and frequently quoting scripture, talked to one another about how Americans have become oblivious to violence and the suffering of others in the world.
They talked about how they -- as young, black Christians -- view the United States.
Mostly, they talked about how God -- not man -- will have the final word.
Excerpts from the conversation:
WHO IS AMERICA NOW?
Cotton: When this happened, it was tragic, and I don't want to take away from the fact that a lot of people passed away ...
But the reality is that these people in other nations, they've been going through this all of their lives. They live war every day. What about that? Why hasn't America reached out to them? You've got kids in foreign nations walking around with guns because that's their lifestyle. They have to live like this. And they lose thousands of people every day ...
Rodgers: When they were showing the people and little [Palestinian] boys jumping up and down with flags and they were yelling, "Yea! Yea!" They were very excited. America was like, (gasp) "What a disgrace."
America has taken life for granted. These young people, like Robinette said, these babies, all they know is war ...
Pearson: Poor people are always going to hate the rich kid. We waste more food. It causes envy. ... To me, the [attack] is more than unbelievable, it's completely understandable. I'm not saying it's right, but I do understand why someone might be mad in that situation. I feel like I might be mad, too.
You have to learn to put yourself in these people's shoes. You're looking at a country that does whatever it wants. America says, "We worry about keeping the peace." No, they don't worry about keeping the peace. They worry about, if it's not going to affect America in any kind of way or if they don't see it affecting America, then they don't care ...
Jackson: How did America feel when Africans were being driven from Africa over to here? Thousands of people died in that ... how did America feel when Native Americans here in this land were being destroyed?
Who is America now?
The thing is, this hit home. Wow. It hit home. That doesn't excuse the fact of what happened ... But Americans are not the only ones who have feelings.
JUST THE BEGINNING
Cotton: Based upon my Christian walk, I believe this is just the beginning. The world is not going to get any better. It's going to get worse until God comes back. ... There will be times where you have little setbacks, but it's a continuum ...
Rodgers: I believe if John the Baptist was talking about, "Repent, the end times are here, the end times are now." If the end times were there then, and that's been 2,000-some years ago, what about now? ...
Jackson: No matter how strong our Army gets, the power does not lie in the hand of man. The only hope that we have is in God. We can do stuff to protect us, and maybe even make it better for us. But if the enemy is inside, what does it matter? We can be beaten from the inside out.
ANOTHER ACTION MOVIE
Jackson: Nobody knows the mind of God. Nobody can sit here and say, "God did this or God didn't do this." Nobody knows. But God does have a perfect plan ...
The loving God we serve is not just a loving God; our God is a god of wrath and authority and order. When things are out of control and we are defaming his name ... we ostracize him from our school systems, we ostracize him from our families, we ostracize him from our churches even, and we have conformed to the way of the world ...
Rodgers: People think this is another action movie that has happened. They watch "Die Hard" or "Terminator." We are so immune to watching these horrific crimes ... so immune to baby mamas and the Jerry Springer shows, the stereotypical America, we're so immune to that, that [the terrorist attacks] didn't even matter to us.
GENERATION X
Cotton: It's a generation of, like, an "I don't care" kind of attitude, like, "I'm down for whatever, if I die, I die," is kind of the mentality. ... It's sad. If I really don't care about anything, then I don't care about you.
Our enemy is exactly like us. It's an "I don't care" attitude, and they're willing to do whatever it takes. And, if they take themselves out in the process, that's the way it is.
Jackson: I believe it's possible for us to fellowship in peace. However ... America is getting to the point now where they will agree with you, they will walk with you, until they disagree, or they find out you don't stand for what they stand for.
TOP OF THE WORLD
Whitaker: I think [the attacks] could have been avoided. Everybody is so relaxed: "Hey, we're the United States. We're on top of the world." But that's when you got to see it coming the most because everybody wants to take the person off the top.
Rodgers: I don't really go to movies that much, but there's a movie called "Swordfish" that we just recently saw. I really think there are terrorists who say, "Hey, they made this wonderful movie for us just to emulate."
ALLOW HIM IN
Jackson: We have come together as a nation. When it hit us, it was so nice to see how so many people came together. A lot of people gave blood.
Pearson: Did you see how much money they raised?
Rodgers: Billions of dollars.
Pearson: How much do we raise in the church offering on Sunday?
Rodgers: The sad thing about it, as tragic as it was, it became a marketing scam, too.
Rainey: Buying flags. Buying gas masks.
Rodgers: Everybody wanted to buy them.
Pearson: And every company talked about what they donated to the cause. Rather than just do it, they put it on their Web sites and everything.
Jackson: But we helped other nations as well, and that was a great thing. Another thing is that we came together in prayer. It would be nice if they could implement that ...
Rodgers: Every day ...
Jackson: God will come in only if we allow him to come in.