From Ashes, Affirmation

From the ashes of horrific destruction and indescribable tragedy, something spiritually good arises.

It is a message Oklahoma Gov. Frank Keating and his wife, Cathy, have expressed to the nation in the year since the bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building tattered the physical and psychic fabric of their state.

It was a message they brought to Orange County on Sunday during a service attended by about 2,700 people at the Crystal Cathedral.

The Keatings were guest speakers in a first-year observance of the April 19, 1995, Oklahoma City bombing that killed 168 people--including 19 children--and injured 600 others. In an intimate “chat” that was televised for a national audience, the Rev. Robert H. Schuller, the Crystal Cathedral pastor, and the Keatings discussed how the tragedy pulled the country together.

“This was not just Oklahoma City’s loss,” Cathy Keating said. “This was America’s loss.”

Frank Keating recounted how, along with the staggering loss of lives--170 children lost one parent; 30 lost both--the bombing also damaged or destroyed 320 buildings.

Yet, he said, the explosion and destruction somehow brought out the best in people.

There was not one report of looting in the aftermath, he said. And in the year since, the city’s crime rate has been sliced in half.

Keating told the crowd of the important contributions made by hundreds of firefighters and disaster relief people from Orange County and elsewhere in California.

Today, many of those volunteers are returning to Oklahoma City to witness the recovery in a region that gives new meaning to the term “Heartland of America,” the governor said.

“They come and they want to touch that place because never have we had such a spiritual experience where people can really share,” Keating said. “It doesn’t depreciate you. It doesn’t diminish you by sharing what you have with others. That was the lesson of that tragedy.”

Inserting a bit of politics into the service, Schuller commended Cathy Keating for not taking the doctrine of separation of church and state to heart and organizing a memorial service for the victims and their families four days after the bombing.

“I especially thank God for a woman whom [until Sunday] I never met, for her courage, and that is you,” Schuller told her.

She said she spearheaded the memorial service because she was deluged with hundreds of thousands of calls--calls that are still streaming in--from people who wanted to do something for the residents of Oklahoma City.

And as the Keatings crisscrossed the country in the last year to thank the nation for its thoughtfulness and prayers, Cathy Keating said, they have discovered that “we really are a compassionate, loving, caring group of people. I find that everywhere we go.”

After the service, Bob Gordon, who is visiting from Manitoba, Canada, said he was inspired by the resilience of Oklahoma as symbolized by the Keatings.

The devastation of the bombing “showed how a disaster, a catastrophe, brought people together,” said Gordon, 63. “It gives a message that sometimes we forget, that it shouldn’t take a disaster to help each other.”