.

Ray McGinnis

Website: unansweredquestions.ca

Educated in political science, religious studies, and history, Ray McGinnis graduated with a B.A. at the University of Toronto. He also earned a Diploma in Christian Education from the Centre for Christian Studies. He was an educator with the United Church of Canada, working at their national office for 9 years. He subsequently worked at the Naramata Centre in rural British Columbia. From 1999 to 2020 he taught writing workshops. He is the author of Writing the Sacred: A Psalm-inspired Path to Appreciating and Writing Sacred Poetry. McGinnis is interested in the stories we tell, the ones we ignore, and how this shapes our worldview.

On September Eleventh, Ray McGinnis was at an adult retreat with 60 Americans in Joshua Tree, California. Seven years later, he discovered Kristen Breitweiser’s memoir, Wake-Up Call. A constant consumer of the news, he was surprised to learn that September Eleventh families had pressed for an investigation into the attacks. He was surprised mainstream news sources he relied on ignored this news story or kept it off the radar. This led McGinnis to delve further into the questions raised by the Family Steering Committee for the 9/11 Independent Commission. The search for information led him to uncover more open-source material and the range of views among September Eleventh family members. It has led him to reflect on what it means to live in a post-9/11 world, and the narratives we trust.