arlene and I were in London 20 years ago today. I was preaching at the Metropolitan Tabernacle's School of Theology when suicide bombers detonated 3 bombs on the London Underground & one on a bus. 52 people died. More than 800 were maimed or injured.
We were not close enough to hear any of the explosions, but somehow word of the attacks spread through the Met Tab congregation, and when I finished my message, there was an eery silence. By the time I came down from the pulpit, the Tabernacle was already more than half empty.
I had never had a reaction like that to to any of my sermons, so I asked 
Darlene if I had said or done something unintentionally offensive. She told me there was some kind of emergency—explosions in the London Underground, possibly terrorism. The whole city was shutting down.
We didn't immediately understand the scope of it, but all of London quickly ground to a halt. There were no cars or buses moving on the roadways, but London's streets were filled with pedestrians trying to get home.
I had been posting regular updates from that visit to London. Here is what I posted that day.
...and I posted this the following day from the departure lounge in Heathrow as we waited to board our return flight to Los Angeles.
Hard to believe 20 years has come and gone since then.
No comments:
Post a Comment