People rhetorically ask where God was on 9/11 as though He wasn't anywhere. Or they ask it accusingly, the way a detective asks a suspect if he has an alibi. "Where were you on the morning of September the 11th?""Can anyone confirm your alibi?"

God was there, at every point in time and space of significance in the events of that day. He was in the date; He was in our mouths; He was in an open Bible found at the crash site (more on that in a moment); a powerful distortion of Him was the motive force behind the men who committed those first two attacks and a truer picture of Him was the motive force behind the men and women who stopped the third.

In fact, an invocation of His name was the first thing I heard when the attack occurred. I was on the air that morning in Pittsburgh. I already knew that one tower had been struck by a jet. One of my regulars was on the line with me when the second plane struck, "Oh, God!" Shock, adrenaline, and perhaps fear. "It's horrible, the jet just disappeared...it's as though the tower just swallowed it up." Yes, it was fear, and a deep sadness.

The next time I heard His name was in Hebrew. The station owner decided to bring the other two hosts into the studio with me for live conversation. Lynne Cullen: smart, Jewish, liberal, dovish on everything except Israel. Naturally, we were talking about the role of Israel in all of this. Lynne took a call from one of her regulars, a Farrakhanite named Cynthia. "You know actually we are the real Israel, the Africans in America, we're the real Jews."

The Nation of Islam people were reliable progressive allies and most days Lynne would have just taken it for the sake of solidarity. But not that day: cheeks flushing, voice rising, eyes flashing "Shema Israel Adonai Elohaynu, Adonai Ehad!" Silence "Can you translate that, Cynthia?!"

"No, I can't"

"Then you aren't a Jew!!"

Click.

There was that name again. Adonai, The Lord.

Thirty thousand feet above my head, though I didn't know it at the time, a man was invoking his name for courage and for comfort. "Our Father who art in Heaven..." said Todd Beamer into his cell phone. "Hallowed by Thy name" the operator that had been chosen to route that particular call on that particular day, intoned along with him. And then the famous "Let's roll". Ora et Labora, pray and work.

Thirty some thousand feet beneath that prayer we were told that there was an unidentified jet over Pittsburgh airspace. We didn't know for sure. Then someone ran down the hall and said to me "Fire. Fire and smoke in Somerset County!" Then we knew for sure. I wondered how many more planes were going to crash that day and thought of Susan and the kids. Quietly in my mind, "Lord protect us, protect my family." There was that name again.

From next to me a deep resonant voice said: "Why us? What does all of this have to do with America?" It was one of the news men. "Christopher Columbus," I said "1492...Ferdinand and Isabella ended the Muslim occupation of Spain and send Christopher Columbus out to find a shipping route which will enable the Christian West to outflank the Muslim domination of shipping lanes." Blank stare. "The Crusades," I said. "'That's how they think of us...we're crusaders." Continued...