It is difficult for this Oklahoma City native to swallow September 11 exceptionalism. September 11 is a tragedy, but it is a tragedy proportionate to April 19. The differences in scope, method, and impact are proportionate to the differences between New York City’s and Oklahoma City’s size, scope and impact. One a geopolitical scale, one outscales the other. On a personal scale, the effect was too much the same.

Two September 11s ago, as my wife and I went out to celebrate her birthday, I couldn’t help but feel that I was watching a rerun, a sequel. It was not the first large scale terrorist attack on the US, and it was no more a declaration of war than April 19. But where the US met April 19 with grief, incomprehension, and resolution, it met September 11 with grief, incomprehension, and undirected vengeance. Oklahoma City has largely healed from April 19. I don’t see that America wants to heal from the wounds of September 11. Mostly, it seems, it wants to be shocked.

I’m skipping the media re-orgy today. I learned to do that seven years ago, when the first April 19 re-orgy debuted. When you lived through it you don’t need a reminder. Instead of dreading the memories–which don’t need so much as an anniversary to pop up–you dread the media. The photos and sound are too much. The media-added melodrama is a second violence, a terrorism upon the soul. I still say Connie Chung can go to hell for scolding the Oklahoma City Fire Department for not being ready for a terrorist attack. When an event leaves even search dogs depressed, there is little that could have been done.

There will be dozens of retrospectives today, dozens of “what was it like?” and “where are we now?” Whistling in the dark. And in the end, spitting into the wind. Evil doesn’t retreat from mere rehearsals of evil deads. It feeds off it.

We must find some way to weave April 19 and September 11 into the fabric of what it means to be an American. We must own up to the evil we suffered but also own up to the evil we have caused. Detractors can accuse those of us calling for reflection and introspection of America hating, but we have good company. But perhaps the call to embrace your enemy does not apply to America. Perhaps Jesus meant to say “but unless, of course, you are sure you are right.” And, of course, America has always been right.