Photo Credit: Bill Friedrich. _This post originally appeared on Facebook._ This is a photo of my Dad, taken in 2010. He’s retired now after serving over three decades with the Chicago Fire Department. Both of his brothers, and their father before them, served with the CFD. It was their job, every day, to save lives. Even if it put their own in danger. I always think of them on this day. On this day, 17 years ago, 412 emergency response personnel died responding to the September 11 attacks. 343 of them were fighters (including one chaplain and two paramedics). While everyone else ran out of the buildings and away from the scenes, these men and women ran in. They helped an estimated 13,000-15,000 people evacuate, saving the lives of the evacuees at the cost of their own. My father remembers that day. He remembers the heightened state of security in downtown Chicago, because at the time nobody knew if there were other planes in the air with other targets. He remembers every one of his fellow firefighters waiting for the call that would summon them all to make the same sacrifice the NYFD made–a call that, thankfully, never came. I always think of my father, uncles, and grandfather on this day. But I don’t have the luxury of forgetting once this day is over. My cousins and I as kids always knew, instinctively, that our fathers one day might not come home. But we never asked them not to go. If they stayed home, people died. It’s literally that simple. No one asks my father to walk out onto the field at sporting events. No one puts his face on the Jumbotron and asks a crowd to pay their proper respect with wild cheering. No one offers him a discount at stores. No one stops him on the street or in restaurants to thank him for his service. And still he served, for three decades, saving lives. I am the son, the nephew, and the grandson of firefighters–people who did not hesitate to look Death in the face, who stole people right out of Death’s hands, who understood the full and terrible meaning of the word sacrifice, who had more courage than I have ever known. Not a single day goes by that I’m not struck by just how incredible they were–and still are, even though they’re all retired and are nowhere near perfect (sorry guys). I don’t know how many people’s lives they directly saved–I’ve never asked, and I wonder if they themselves know, if they even kept count. The next time you see a firefighter out on the street, or in a store, or eating at a restaurant, or at a community event: thank them. Thank them for the legacy of the 343 firefighters who died on this day 17 years ago. Thank them for their selflessness. Thank them for saving lives. They don’t work for the thanks, but they’ll appreciate it. And so will we: their children, their nieces and nephews, their grandchildren, and their great-grandchildren. * * * God of earth and air, water and fire, height and depth, we pray for those who work in danger, who rush in to bring hope and help and comfort when others flee to safety, whose mission is to seek and save, serve and protect, and whose presence embodies the protection of the Good Shepherd. Give them caution and concern for one another, so that in safety they may do what must be done, under your watchful eye. Support them in their courage and dedication that they may continue to save lives, ease pain, and mend the torn fabric of lives and social order; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen. –Prayer for Emergency Workers, Evangelical Lutheran Worship, p. 85. * * * _Featured Image:“CFDoor” by Eric Allix Rogers is licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 2.0. _ _This is a photo of the door of the firehouse in the neighborhood I grew up in. The red and green lights flanking the door come from the maritime tradition and appear on most Chicago firehouses and apparatus._ ### Rate this: ### Share this: * Share on Facebook (Opens in new window) Facebook * Share on X (Opens in new window) X * Email a link to a friend (Opens in new window) Email * Print (Opens in new window) Print * More * * Share on LinkedIn (Opens in new window) LinkedIn * Share on Pinterest (Opens in new window) Pinterest * Share on Reddit (Opens in new window) Reddit * Share on Tumblr (Opens in new window) Tumblr * Share on Telegram (Opens in new window) Telegram * Share on WhatsApp (Opens in new window) WhatsApp * Like Loading... ### _Related_

(RNS) — The chosen readings, to be voted on by the State Board of Education, draw heavily from Christian perspectives.

_The following remarks were prepared for the tenth monthly interfaith prayer vigil held outside the Miami Correctional Facility near Bunker Hill, Indiana, a state prison currently housing men kidnapped by United States Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents, and whereone ICE detainee has already died. Clergy from the Indiana-Kentucky Synod of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America under the leadership of the Reverend Timothy Graham, Bishop, were tasked with organizing this month’s vigil. Unfortunately, the vigil was cancelled due to severe thunderstorms, torrential rain, and dangerously high winds at the facility._ My name is Ken Ranos, an ordained minister of Word and Sacrament in the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, and it is my pleasure to serve that part of the body of Christ that is Bethlehem Evangelical Lutheran Church in Indianapolis as their pastor. I am here to amplify the voices that racist, cisgender, white, Christian men too often ignore or discredit unless they hear from one of their own, to ensure those voices are not silenced. I am also here because I cannot claim to love the immigrant members of my own family and **not** use my position and voice to work for their safety when they are threatened, especially as other family members celebrate those threats. A reading from Psalm 94: **O LORD, avenging God, O God of vengeance, show yourself. Rise up, O Judge of the world; give to the arrogant their just deserts. How long shall the wicked, O LORD, how long shall the wicked triumph? They bluster in their insolence; all evildoers are full of boasting. They crush your people, O LORD, and afflict your very own. They kill the widow and the foreigner and put the orphans to death. And they say, “The LORD does not see, the God of Jacob takes no notice.” Consider well, you most brutish people; You fools, when will you be wise? Does the one who planted the ear not hear? Does the one who formed the eye not see? Does the one who disciplines the nations not punish? Does the one who teaches all humankind lack knowledge? The LORD knows our human thoughts; how like a puff of wind they are. Happy are they whom you discipline, O LORD, those whom you teach from your law; you give them rest in evil days, until a pit is dug for the wicked. For you will not abandon your people, nor will you forsake your very own. For judgment will again be just, and all the upright of heart will follow it.**_-Psalm 94:1-15, Evangelical Lutheran Worship_ Let us pray. Stir up your power, O Lord, and come. Hear the cries of those unjustly imprisoned behind us, who call out, “Freedom! Freedom! and find no one is listening. See the pain of those incarcerated for the color of their skin and the language they speak, who yearn for safety and are denied. Hear, see, answer, and deliver justice too-long delayed. Rise up, O Judge of the world. Tear down the walls of stone and steel that confine them. Rip apart the chain link fences that keep them from their families and their communities. Flatten the troubled and perilous social landscape that endangers them and guide them along safe paths. Give them rest in evil days. God who disciplines the nations, scatter the proud in their conceit, and cast down from their thrones the mighty who have created and fed this injustice. Put repentance in their hearts, that they may turn away from evil and toward love of neighbor. Remind them that “just following orders” is not and never has been a moral justification for heinous acts, and that their freewill participation does not go unnoticed. Finally, Teacher of all humankind, continue to raise up communities of faith with courage to confront injustice no matter the cost, no matter the price. Fill us gathered here with your Spirit, compel us to action, inspire us with wisdom, protect us in danger, and reunite us with those we have lost to the injustice happening behind us. For you will not abandon your people, nor will you forsake your very own. Amen. ### Rate this: ### Share this: * Share on Facebook (Opens in new window) Facebook * Share on X (Opens in new window) X * Email a link to a friend (Opens in new window) Email * Print (Opens in new window) Print * More * * Share on LinkedIn (Opens in new window) LinkedIn * Share on Pinterest (Opens in new window) Pinterest * Share on Reddit (Opens in new window) Reddit * Share on Tumblr (Opens in new window) Tumblr * Share on Telegram (Opens in new window) Telegram * Share on WhatsApp (Opens in new window) WhatsApp * Like Loading... ### _Related_