I wish I didn't remember, ever so clearly, the confused and misleading news report I heard on the radio the morning of September 11, 2001, just before I switched it off and went about my day until getting a call from my wife a couple hours later. I wish I could forget the airplanes slamming into those two tall buildings and erase the thought of people choosing between death by an impossible fall or by fire. I wish I could read the comics page on September 11 without Baldo (Baldo!) making me weep.
For that matter, I wish I could think about Japan or Germany without remembering the rape of Nanking and the subjugation of the Korean peninsula and the senseless slaughter of millions of Jews, Poles, and Russians. I'd like to think about my cherished memories of the American South without remembering the unreckonable number lost to the brutal institution of chattel slavery. I dearly wish I could think about the history of my nation and this world without feeling rage and hatred war with sorrow.
Forgetting is not my problem. Remembering is.
Because I cannot forget, I remember 2 Peter 3:8-14.
But do not overlook this one fact, beloved, that with the Lord one day is as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day. The Lord is not slow to fulfill his promise as some count slowness, but is patient toward you, not wishing that any should perish, but that all should reach repentance. But the day of the Lord will come like a thief, and then the heavens will pass away with a roar, and the heavenly bodies will be burned up and dissolved, and the earth and the works that are done on it will be exposed.
Since all these things are thus to be dissolved, what sort of people ought you to be in lives of holiness and godliness, waiting for and hastening the coming of the day of God, because of which the heavens will be set on fire and dissolved, and the heavenly bodies will melt as they burn! But according to his promise we are waiting for new heavens and a new earth in which righteousness dwells.
Therefore, beloved, since you are waiting for these, be diligent to be found by him without spot or blemish, and at peace.
There is no righteousness now, but righteousness is coming, and is at hand. In light of that, I strive to be found at peace, even while I can never forget.
