Twenty-five years have passed since the towers fell, but for Kristy Etheridge, the memory is still raw enough to demand action. She isn’t just guiding tourists through Lower Manhattan; she is leading a prayer walk for Christians and church groups at the World Trade Center memorial site. In a city that often feels like it’s moving too fast to stop and reflect, Etheridge is forcing a pause to honor the 2,977 innocent lives lost on that Tuesday morning.
A Walk of Faith and Ash
The story comes from reporting by Christianity Today, which highlights Etheridge’s unique approach to the memorial. When groups join her, she transforms a standard history tour into a spiritual journey, stopping at fire stations and the memorial pools to pray. The atmosphere on the ground is heavy with history, described vividly by Kristopher Woolley, a Goldman Sachs analyst who was on the 50th floor when the second plane struck. In an oral history interview, Woolley remembered the chaos, stating, “It went from a beautiful blue-sky day to just like a volcanic eruption, and we were in the middle of the ash”
Woolley, a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, watched the south tower collapse right before his eyes. He believes that if the building had held just a few minutes longer, he would have been trapped directly beneath it. He and a colleague tried to move toward the towers to help, only to be met by the roar of the collapse and the falling debris. These personal accounts, shared by the Deseret News Faith section, remind us that behind the statistics are real people who lived through the impossible.
Why We Must Remember
This isn’t about politics; it’s about the soul of New York. We are a city built on resilience, but we are also a city that risks forgetting the cost of that resilience. The Daily Signal notes that while some of us remember the day in real time, others only know it through history lessons. That gap in memory is dangerous. We must understand the ideology that inspired the murder of innocent people and recognize the conditions that allowed such extremism to flourish. First responders charged into smoke-filled buildings, and ordinary Americans risked their lives for strangers. That spirit of sacrifice is what defines us, not the anger or the fear.
Etheridge’s message is simple but urgent. As she leads her group through the site, she tells them, “Let’s keep praying, and let’s never forget.” This isn’t just a platitude; it’s a command. If we stop praying and stop remembering, we lose the very thing that kept us standing after the dust settled. The 25th anniversary is a stark reminder that the fight against the ideology of Islamism is ongoing, and the families of the victims deserve more than a moment of silence on a calendar.
New York needs more of this kind of leadership. We need people who aren’t afraid to mix faith with history and demand that we honor the fallen with more than just a plaque. The 2,977 people who died didn’t die so we could forget; they died so we could live free. It is up to us to make sure that their sacrifice means something today.
This is opinion and commentary from the RapForMayor team.
