Just Show Up

I am riveted as I watch the unfolding of a story waiting eighteen years to be told. Of a daring rescue that changed and saved many lives. Of a quiet defiance in the face of tragedy that I can't believe I'm just now hearing about.  One of historical significance that I'm suddenly wishing all of the world were here watching this incredible story with me. A story of love and hope on one of the darkest days ever to occur. 

It is September 11, 2001. The nation has been rocked by the news that two planes have struck the World Trade Center in New York City, symbols of American business prosperity crashing down to the ground in a flame-heap in the blink of an eye. The Pentagon burns. A field in Pennsylvania now holds a plane in its ground-depths and all of the country feels its been stabbed in the heart. As people flood the streets of New York City in disbelief and shock, trauma grips them and they are bewildered. Simply trying to get out and praying for the saving of their lives, they run in droves away from the World Trade Center and surrounding areas, looking for a way of escape. A way to safety. 

The first thing they see is the ferry. Streets blocked and bridges closed, with no way to get to their cars, the only obvious transportation mode is by water. For the first time in over a century, the only path out of lower Manhattan is by boat. People don't even care where the ferry will take them. They just want out. Want to know they will survive the fiery inferno and live to tell the tale. By the thousands, they stream toward the harbor. The ferry boats begin to get folks on board. They know there is no other way. They are the only way. The boats are filled almost immediately. 

A Coast Guard member in a nearby area notices the scene. He sees the first couple ferry boats are maxed out and is worried they might hardly make it to the other side of the river being so over-filled past capacity. Then he notices the droves still standing on the shoreline and knows that action must be taken to get these desperate people out. And so he makes a phone call that will alter the course of history and change countless lives. He radios to any and all boats in the nearby area: "This is the United States Coast Guard aboard the Pilot boat in New York. Anybody willing to help with the evacuation in lower Manhattan, please report to Governor's Island." 

Within a few minutes, boats by the droves begin to emerge out of the dust cloud, headed straight for the scene of tragedy. Fishing boats, ferries, tugboats all on a mission to rescue. As one participant commented, "If it could float, it got there." They dock and begin to pick people up by the hundreds. For the next nine hours, they make runs back and forth. Back and forth. Carrying broken lives to safety. By the end of the day, thousands have been rescued. 

History hails the similiar effort of the brave rescue at Dunkirk during World War II. A movie was even made about it a few years back as fishing vessels and privately-owned boats came to the rescue of thousands of British troops. The final count at the end of that effort was 338,000 men. In comparison, the number estimated to have been saved by the boat lift effort in New York was 500,000. It is the largest sea evacuation effort in history, but few know about it. Yet the ones who were there will tell you it was one of the most rewarding and life-changing moments of their lives. 

I catch my breath, and I can only think of one thing. That love does. When you love, you dare. And love can be a life-boat to save the sinking and the dying. Can supply a way out when it seems like there's no way out and somebody's searching and all they need is to know that they'll be okay. That everything will be okay. 

Skimming through my Twitter timeline, I read of a young man who lost a good friend to suicide days prior and how he's treating his heartache by talking to some homeless guy whose at the end of his proverbial rope and how this youngster is telling him to hope on. Is speaking out of his own pain into the pain of another and giving him all the love he can offer. And another life-boat has just been sent. 

And all I want to do is to ask everyone and anyone who will listen...

Will. You. Be. A. Life-boat?!

All the world's pain and all the world's anguish and all the world's hopelessness is beyond the ability for any one of us to even make a dent in but if everyone was a life-boat for someone, might we just begin to roll back this darkness and stand in quiet defiance against the tragedy that is this fallen place? 

A few ordinary individuals changed lives on 9/11 because they were simply brave enough to show up. They heard the distress call of the mass-broken and ran toward it with all they had. And as the ash-clouds billowed up above them and evil threatened to have its way, love arrived on those shores with hope and announced that mercy would win. 

I'm rocked and I cry out on behalf of all caring ones who long to hear the cries of the hurting...

All that's needed is for you to show up. To open your hands and let them be God's hands. To move your feet and let them be God's feet. To open your heart and let it be God's heart. 

Just. Show. Up. 

Waters now still at that harbor. A new building now sits near where that pit of despair sat nearly two decades ago. The boats are back to their normal business. But a handful recall what happened there that day. A miracle came on the water. And history was changed forever. 

Perhaps you just might help change somebody else's history by your willingness to let your love be the carrier-vessel for the love of God.