Page 263 - Religion in the Media Age Media, Religion & Culture

252 Public religious culture post-09/11/01

objects to victims. They seemed rather unconnected, yet, at the same time,
they did invest some time and energy in a specific ritual act – lighting a
candle at an appropriate time and – significantly – in conjunction with a
larger shared ritual co-ordinated through the Internet. This seems like a small
and insignificant thing. But against the larger backdrop, they participated in a
direct way in a ritualization, on their own time, in their own home. Older
traditions of civil religion never contemplated a level of private action of that
order. Another of our interviewees, Megan Sealy, who we met in Chapter 8,
reported a similar motivation to action. She and her son, Dell, put a flag on
their car and donated money to the Red Cross. In addition, Megan recalled,

Well, I went to church because they would have noontime prayers for
people in New York and for their families.... I went just to feel that I
was doing something, trying to make things better.

Jim Vowski illustrates the extent to which the lived and mediated experi-
ence of 9/11 is imprinted both across time, and as a moment that
interrupted time and has led to new ways of thinking and acting – a defini-
tive moment. Jim lives in the suburbs of a large western city with his wife,
Sarah, age 41, and their son, Jake, 18, and daughter, Brenna, 13. They
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attend an Evangelical megachurch regularly, and it is their main place of
social contact and engagement. Both Jim and Sarah are employed full-
time. As this interview was taking place in the fall some years after 9/11,
the Interviewer asked Jim in his individual interview about his and his
family’s commemorations of the attacks. Jim and his family did participate
in a small way in the one-year anniversary commemorations, but did little
else. At the same time, he seems to have been moved by the events in the
same way that Paula Wilcox and Megan Sealy were.

Interviewer: Yeah. After 9/11 there were a lot of media commemorations.
Did you do anything to commemorate the one-year anniversary?
Jim: Only the minute of prayer. We did it. The whole nation was supposed
to do it on the anniversary. That was the only thing.
Interviewer: Did you watch any of the coverage?
Jim: No.
Interviewer: Have you done anything to commemorate since?
Jim: No.
Interviewer: Okay.
Jim: If you really want to know, that [9/11] was, again, God’s hand. We
did a lot afterwards, praying for those families, and what a heinous
thing. I get up and go to work in the morning, and all the sudden, I’m
just gone. So, that way, we prayed for the families and try to lean in
for the family and kept them in our hearts for quite a while and that
sort of idea. . . .