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9/11 25 Years Later

9/11 25 Years Later

Last updated on: September 11, 2026 at 9:21 pm by James F. McGrath

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9/11 25 Years Later 2026-09-11T21:21:58-04:00 James F. McGrath

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I know I have shared at least a little about my experiences on September 11th 2001, but seeing as it is exactly 25 years later, it seems an appropriate time to revisit the moment.

In 2001, I moved back to the United States with my family, having been teaching in Romania for the past three years. I came ahead of them to look for work, staying at my home in Brooklyn, New York while I did so. I contacted every school anywhere in the vicinity. I managed to secure teaching jobs as an adjunct at two schools, Biblical Theological Seminary in Pennsylvania and Alliance Theological Seminary in lower Manhattan. I found us a place to live in Pennsylvania, in the outskirts of Philadelphia, someplace I could afford and from which I could travel to both seminaries. I spent a lot of time riding trains and it provided much opportunity for thought, but also for reading for pleasure. I finally started reading Frank Herbert’s Dune series on the train, and had it not been for that, I would undoubtedly not have ended up teaching, then researching, and ultimately becoming quite famous for my work on the intersection of religion and science fiction. At that point I could not envisage that future. I was just happy to be catching up on a novel that I ought to have read sooner.

September 11th 2001 was not one of the days that I went into Manhattan to teach, and so I was at home. That morning my sister called to check on me, and realizing that I did not know what was unfolding, she told me to turn on the TV.

We stood there transfixed for hours afterwards as the situation developed.

Alliance Theological Seminary’s location in lower Manhattan was halfway between what they called ground zero, where only emergency crews and rescue workers were allowed to go, and the part of lower Manhattan that they closed off to vehicular traffic. Classes ceased for about a week, and when they resumed what I saw there was surreal. Missing persons flyers on every lamppost and in many other places. A layer of dust covering everything. I remember the sickening smell on a subway journey that presumably came from decomposing bodies in a station closed because of its location close to where the twin towers collapsed.

I realized that on my previous trip into the city to teach, I had gotten off at the World Trade Center subway station rather than where I usually did. I had not even bothered to look up and gaze at the buildings. It never occurs to us in the course of everyday life that a given day might be the last opportunity we will ever have to see that particular sight.

When classes resumed, the mood was somber. I often tell my students about the experience of teaching a course on biblical interpretation that year. Any other year, when I asked students to discuss some of the Psalms and in particular to indicate which ones they would feel comfortable praying and why, a few remarks would have been made about Psalm 137, and then we would have moved on.

This year was not like other years.

This was the year that I first noticed the fact that the psalmist was not merely seeking vengeance of retribution. His imprecatory prayer is that God will repay the Babylonians what they did to the inhabitants of Jerusalem. That is the context of his prayer that someone would dash Babylonian infants against rocks. This is a grieving father, hoping that someone will make Babylonian fathers feel the pain that he felt watching his own children meet that fate.

I still aspire to respond differently even in my darkest moments, but I no longer judge the psalmist as harshly, as unfairly, as I did before September 11th 2001. Still now 25 years later, the experience of teaching that course and revisiting that Psalm in the aftermath of that massive devastation remains with me. I now teach students who were not even alive when this occurs.

I am glad that I was connected to my home town at that time. If it was challenging to be so close to these events, it would probably have been harder to see the city I grew up in undergoing these things from afar.

These are my thoughts on this solemn occasion 25 years later. I found my post from the 10th anniversary, and so will share that as well. If you are inclined, please do share your thoughts in a comment. Or feel free to mark the occasion with silence.

Recollections from September 11th, 2001

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