Notes from my Knapsack 9-10-2026
Jeff Gill
Anticipation, the unexpected, and new understandings
___
With the 25th commemoration of the 9-11 attack on the United States on Friday, we look back at the day, and the times in 2001.
I do remember much of that summer; I was directing church camp sessions, driving across Ohio, listening to radio discussions about the disappearance of Chandra Levy in Washington, shark attacks off the Florida coast, Art Bell was back on late night talking about crop circles and EVPs (don’t ask).
The morning before 9-11, Monday Sept. 10, I recall a fellow on the Today Show talking about cheap bookings and how to pack for travel, and said to my wife “the world must be fine if this is all they have to talk about.” Don’t take morning show programming as a measure of global health.
Now we all notice with a chill, not with delight, when a fall morning dawns cloudless and blue. It brings that morning back, and the confusion that came with it, some of which is still with us. A substantial chunk of the Islamic world hated us, which should not have been news, but was to many. Sayyid Qutb had been dead thirty-five years, executed by his own country, but his writings against modernism and secularism had only grown in popularity across the Islamic world since his death.
A social media feed which has been around a while has become rather interesting this year, with the header “25YearsAgoLive” now keyed to 2001. You get a sense of both our obliviousness, and the hints that were coming, about Islamic terrorism and the precedents of the USS Cole bombing and the World Trade Center attack in 1993, all which could have given us more of an awareness something was coming.
And it all makes me think about what we know, easily and readily can know today, that will look in another 25 years like another case of “how could they not see that coming?” It’s all too like reading historical documents about an obviously well-read and humane doctor, who applies leeches or refuses hand washing before investigating wounds. He didn’t know what he didn’t know, even if in retrospect it was knowable.
Another thing social media is teaching us effectively is that adding more information to our awareness is not the same as being smarter, not how we can end up making better decisions. There’s a reason wisdom and knowledge are traditionally considered very different things. We know so much stuff now, but I can’t think of anyone who would be willing to declare that in 2026 we are all that much wiser.
It would be nice, though, to feel wiser about the world. Not a defiant, assertive, over-confident, smarter than thou sort of tone, but to rest calmly in clarity if not certainty. To be able to look at who is standing where and with whom, and anticipate what our interests require as a nation.
I’ll be honest. I don’t think we’re wiser as a country right now. And I worry the next attack will, like 9-11, again catch us off-guard. We are more aware that there are people out there who don’t like us, but as much because we’ve given them more reasons to be angry and resentful.
It may be that wisdom is for individuals, and rarely for nations. But if any nation can be wise, I’d like it to be ours. I think it possible, but we’ve got a ways to go. That’s what this 9-11 has me thinking about.
Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and preacher in central Ohio; he’s not worried about shark attacks, anyhow. Tell him how you seek wisdom at knapsack77@gmail.com, or follow @Knapsack on X.
Jeff Gill
Anticipation, the unexpected, and new understandings
___
With the 25th commemoration of the 9-11 attack on the United States on Friday, we look back at the day, and the times in 2001.
I do remember much of that summer; I was directing church camp sessions, driving across Ohio, listening to radio discussions about the disappearance of Chandra Levy in Washington, shark attacks off the Florida coast, Art Bell was back on late night talking about crop circles and EVPs (don’t ask).
The morning before 9-11, Monday Sept. 10, I recall a fellow on the Today Show talking about cheap bookings and how to pack for travel, and said to my wife “the world must be fine if this is all they have to talk about.” Don’t take morning show programming as a measure of global health.
Now we all notice with a chill, not with delight, when a fall morning dawns cloudless and blue. It brings that morning back, and the confusion that came with it, some of which is still with us. A substantial chunk of the Islamic world hated us, which should not have been news, but was to many. Sayyid Qutb had been dead thirty-five years, executed by his own country, but his writings against modernism and secularism had only grown in popularity across the Islamic world since his death.
A social media feed which has been around a while has become rather interesting this year, with the header “25YearsAgoLive” now keyed to 2001. You get a sense of both our obliviousness, and the hints that were coming, about Islamic terrorism and the precedents of the USS Cole bombing and the World Trade Center attack in 1993, all which could have given us more of an awareness something was coming.
And it all makes me think about what we know, easily and readily can know today, that will look in another 25 years like another case of “how could they not see that coming?” It’s all too like reading historical documents about an obviously well-read and humane doctor, who applies leeches or refuses hand washing before investigating wounds. He didn’t know what he didn’t know, even if in retrospect it was knowable.
Another thing social media is teaching us effectively is that adding more information to our awareness is not the same as being smarter, not how we can end up making better decisions. There’s a reason wisdom and knowledge are traditionally considered very different things. We know so much stuff now, but I can’t think of anyone who would be willing to declare that in 2026 we are all that much wiser.
It would be nice, though, to feel wiser about the world. Not a defiant, assertive, over-confident, smarter than thou sort of tone, but to rest calmly in clarity if not certainty. To be able to look at who is standing where and with whom, and anticipate what our interests require as a nation.
I’ll be honest. I don’t think we’re wiser as a country right now. And I worry the next attack will, like 9-11, again catch us off-guard. We are more aware that there are people out there who don’t like us, but as much because we’ve given them more reasons to be angry and resentful.
It may be that wisdom is for individuals, and rarely for nations. But if any nation can be wise, I’d like it to be ours. I think it possible, but we’ve got a ways to go. That’s what this 9-11 has me thinking about.
Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and preacher in central Ohio; he’s not worried about shark attacks, anyhow. Tell him how you seek wisdom at knapsack77@gmail.com, or follow @Knapsack on X.
