Pacifica Stories

Twenty-five years ago, on September 11, 2001, our nation experienced a day that changed us forever. For those who remember that morning, the memories remain vivid. The confusion. The disbelief. The realization that our country was under attack. 

At 8:46 a.m., American Airlines Flight 11 struck the North Tower of the World Trade Center. Seventeen minutes later, Flight 175 struck the South Tower. Flight 77 struck the Pentagon at 9:37. At 9:59, the South Tower collapsed. At 10:03, the passengers and crew of Flight 93 fought back against the hijackers before the plane crashed near Shanksville, Pennsylvania. At 10:28, the North Tower collapsed. 

By the end of the day, 2,977 people had been killed. They were parents, children, husbands and wives, friends, colleagues, and first responders who ran toward danger while others were running away. 

In the days and weeks that followed, Americans experienced an extraordinary sense of unity. Flags appeared everywhere. Strangers helped strangers. People lined up to give blood. Communities gathered to pray. First responders, medical professionals, clergy, teachers, and ordinary citizens came together to serve. For a time, many of the divisions that so often define us seemed smaller. We remembered that we belonged to one another. 

The Inheritance We Have Received 

Today, twenty-five years later, many of our students were not yet born. September 11th is history to them rather than memory. That creates a responsibility for those of us who remember. 

We are inheritors. Every generation receives a world it did not create. We inherit institutions we did not build, freedoms we did not earn on our own, traditions we did not begin, ideas we did not discover, and sacrifices we did not make. 

C.S. Lewis warned about what he called “chronological snobbery”, the tendency to assume that because something belongs to the past, it is old, backward, or less intelligent than what we believe today. We want to resist that temptation at Pacifica. 

We honor, respect, and learn from the past. We stand on the work of generations who came before us. We preserve what is true and good; we learn from their mistakes, and where previous generations have done wrong, we have the humility to acknowledge it and ask forgiveness. We do not worship the past, but neither do we dismiss it. We inherit gifts from those who came before us. And with that inheritance comes a responsibility: to remember, to understand, to honor, and to pass on what is good.

The proper response to our inheritance is stewardship. We ask: What have we received? What is worth preserving? What needs to be strengthened? And what will we pass on to those who come after us? 

Unity, Courage, and Care 

These are values we want our students to understand, not simply as words, but as ways of living. Unity reminds us that our differences do not have to divide us. For Christians, this conviction goes even deeper: every person is made in the image of God. Unity does not mean we all think alike. It means we recognize that we belong to one another. 

Courage is choosing what is right when we are afraid. The firefighters, police officers, and passengers of Flight 93 demonstrated a courage that remains part of our national memory. Christian courage calls us to stand for truth, defend the vulnerable, speak when silence is easier, and love when it is costly. 

Care for others reminds us that we are responsible for one another. Jesus tells us to love our neighbor as ourselves. That command is lived in the classroom, on the athletic field, in our families, in our friendships, and whenever we see someone who needs our help. 

Remembering Forward 

To remember September 11th well is not simply to remember what happened. It is to ask what we will do with what we have inherited. 

Our students will inherit a world with challenges we cannot fully anticipate. Our responsibility is to give them more than information with which to face it. We want to give them wisdom, faith, and character. 

At Pacifica, we are not simply preparing students for college and careers. We are teaching students to think and live well, to seek truth, recognize what is good, pursue it with courage, disagree without becoming enemies, and understand that freedom is not simply doing whatever we want, but becoming the people we were created to be. 

Today, we remember. We remember the lives lost. We remember those who ran toward danger. We remember the families whose lives were permanently changed. We remember the strangers who became neighbors. And we remember a nation that, for a time, rediscovered its unity. 

Today, we honor and remember September 11, 2001. We remember because we are connected to the past. We remember because we have received an inheritance. 

Sincerely, 

Jim Knight 

Head of School