Editor’s note: The Rev. Dr. Stephen White served as Episcopal chaplain at Princeton University from 2000–2008. Shortly after the 9/11 attack in New York, he responded to a plea from St. Paul’s Chapel for volunteer clergy to spend a day at Ground Zero to provide pastoral care to workers at the attack site. This essay is based on contemporaneous notes from before, during, and after his time at Ground Zero on October 11, 2001. Steve retired to the Berkshires in 2008, living first in Hancock and now in Great Barrington with his wife Andrea and son Aidan. He has served Episcopal parishes in Pittsfield, North Adams, Williamstown, and Great Barrington. He is currently at work on a collection of personal essays.
At 6 a.m., the New Jersey Transit train from Princeton Junction leaves Newark for the last leg toward New York. A red sunrise backlights the familiar skyline to the east and south — a warning of gloomy weather to come. And where the World Trade Towers had been a month before, there is now only sky.
It is October 11, 2001, and I am on my way to St. Paul’s Chapel near the World Trade Center to spend the day as a clergy volunteer, offering help to the rescue and recovery workers there. I am having second thoughts about going to that place today and thinking about how helpless I felt one month ago. On that terrible day, as I walked around the university campus where I am a chaplain, people would see my clerical collar, stop me, and ask me to pray for a New York friend who was not answering their cell phone, or ask me how God could let something like this happen. Usually, when asked to appeal to God on their behalf, as when someone asks me to make sure the Yankees win the World Series (I’m a Red Sox fan), I would say, “I’m in sales, not management.” But these are somber times, when jokes can hurt instead of amuse. And I’m wondering what I can do to make some of the hurt go away — not only theirs, but my own, too. I’ve been thinking this the whole way up from Princeton, so I try to think of something else. But I can’t.
As the train comes closer to the tunnel under the Hudson River, I feel a pang of fear, remembering reports of the previous day that warned of more terrorist attacks, possibly in this very tunnel. Everyone is thinking a lot more about dying than usual these days, and I feel surprised that I am not afraid. Well, maybe I’m a little scared, but less than I should be, and I don’t know why. I have a wife and an infant son, so I am fearful for their sakes, and perhaps for myself. The lights flicker, as they always do just before the train emerges on the other side of the river and approaches Penn Station, and this gives me a start. So maybe I’m more fearful than I’m willing to admit. The crowds are much smaller than I remember; the subway seems almost deserted. Perhaps it is because of the early hour, or possibly because the part of the city where I am going has lost so many jobs that fewer people need to go there early in the morning. Police and soldiers with automatic weapons were not there before, and the sight of them is unsettling.
From around 14th Street, the borderline of midtown and Greenwich Village, I notice an acrid smell. It is unlike any scent I have smelled before. The smell will be in my nostrils and on my clothing all day and for days after. And it will be in my memory, long after the real smell is gone. I am good at smells, remember smells, and know what the sources of most odors are, but I do not know what I smell now. What is it? It is a combination of pulverized concrete dust and burnt building materials. It smells sort of electrical, like the inside of a new computer or radio, or when a wire shorts out, only much stronger. It’s not pleasant but, oddly, not unpleasant either. There are other smells mixed in, but I cannot identify them. I know where they come from, so I don’t want to dwell on what they might be. It is the smell of angel dust. The smell gets stronger as I walk up the subway steps to Church Street, just two blocks from the World Trade Center. And now the odor is more pungent, and I smell smoke, too.
Across the street stands St. Paul’s, a chapel of Trinity Church, Wall Street, the oldest Episcopal parish in New York City. It is the only colonial-era church building still standing in New York and where George Washington attended services on the morning of his first inauguration. Despite its proximity to the World Trade Center, it survived the terrorist attack relatively unscathed — just some broken windows and debris in the churchyard that is still there. Access to the area is strictly limited, and there is a barricade. I am wearing my black clerical shirt and white “dog collar” (“It kills fleas and ticks for 90 days,” I like to say to kids when they ask me why I wear that thing around my neck) and when I show identification to the National Guard sergeant, she waves me through the gate.
The scene at the church is arresting. Posters and banners cover the iron fence surrounding the churchyard. They were made by school children from all over the country and the world. They are all addressed to the first responders and say things like “Thank you,” “We appreciate how you tried to save people,” “You went into the buildings while others ran out,” “We’ll never forget you,” “You are my hero,” “God bless you!,” “We love you.”
There is a kitchen serving a hot breakfast to the workers — police, firefighters, National Guard troops, and others — on the church’s broad stone steps. Signs say, “Welcome” and “Please come in and rest.” Fr. Lyndon Harris and his staff look exhausted, but are upbeat about what is going on here. Some would say they’re operating on adrenaline, and some would say God is upholding them as they work to sustain others, and maybe both are true. I don’t know what theory is correct because I have been wondering where God has been these last four weeks. I am welcomed warmly by Fr. Harris, who begins to explain how I can help. He tells me just to wander around and be available, be present. “None of us is sure what we’re doing here,” he adds. He gives a little chuckle and says in a dulcet South Carolina drawl, “Our motto here is ‘Give me ambiguity, or give me something else.’”
Inside the church, smells of potatoes, eggs, bacon, and coffee waft in from the breakfast buffet at the entrance. I see vigil candles burning in glass cups on windowsills and tables. There are more posters from children addressed to the rescue workers, many of whom are sleeping on pews or eating breakfast on the pews or the floor. A few seem to be praying — or maybe they’re sleeping — and others are in the pews reading letters and cards taped to the backs of all the pews. There are so many of these messages that they are in layers. The workers lift them gently to read as many as they can. One falls to the floor, and an EMT carefully tapes it back in place. As they read these messages from children, it is sometimes enough to release the pent-up emotions from sorting through the debris, finding bits of bodies and sometimes whole ones, and so, they weep.
In the back of the church and along the side aisles, massage therapists, podiatrists, and chiropractors are massaging weary rescue workers coming off the night shift. At first, I think it is a little strange to see them doing this in a sacred space, but then I think of the incarnation — that fundamental Christian doctrine of a loving God choosing to become human to make all creation holy. I see this embodied, tactile, hands-on sensibility alive here as some relaxation is kneaded into strained muscles and tired feet, necks, shoulders, and backs, and I think this is a sacred thing and precisely what ought to be going on here now. Hungry men who have scarcely taken a break during a 12-hour shift are fed and later gently covered with blankets by strangers where they lie. They fall asleep exhausted on pews and in corners. Their equipment litters the floor — helmets and turnout coats, flashlights, tools, goggles, boots. Some will go home after a brief nap, but others will just go back out to keep searching for bodies. And, tragically, they will find them.
A few nuns and priests gather in one corner for Morning Prayer, and in other places laypeople speak with rescue workers, some in Spanish. People mill about, but everyone seems to have a purpose. But I’m not sure I have something useful to do here, and I wonder if others feel that way, too.
Someone gives me an identification badge on a lanyard, a hard hat, and an N95 face mask. Fr. Andy Mullins — rector of the Church of the Epiphany in Manhattan and a veteran volunteer here — takes me out of the church and down Broadway to Fulton Street, where we turn right toward Ground Zero. It has clouded over now, and it is dreary, but it is getting warmer, maybe in the low 60s. At the corner of Fulton and Church Street, we come to another checkpoint, and the National Guard sergeant here seems unsure about whether to let us pass. When he checks with a police captain, the captain says, “Let them by; we need these guys down there.” I am glad the cop feels this way because, as the unimaginably vast site appears before us, I am still unsure what I can do to help anyone. As we pass through the barricade, a Guardsman sternly tells me to put on my hard hat and mask and keep them on.
Ground Zero is an enormous oblong. At this edge of the site, near what remains of 5 World Trade Center, I can see a panoramic view of the crumbled towers, and I am shocked and stunned by the immensity of the scene. Television and still pictures do not convey how big this area is. As I look across to the other side of the site, workers who are on the mound only halfway across are so far away that they appear to me like ants on an anthill. A police lieutenant tells me the site is the size of 32 football fields and tells me some other facts that I do not hear because I am trying to hold myself together, and I’m not sure I can. I do not grieve for the buildings, now lying in ruins, but for the people who were in them when they fell, and for their families. Ashes to ashes, dust to dust.
“The Pile,” as it is called, which now rises about three stories above street level — down from six stories a month ago — is still burning in some places, and enormous hollow steel structures protruding up from the rubble act like chimneys with gray smoke pouring out of them from deep down. There are big pieces of twisted steel and broken concrete everywhere, and gray dust or mud cover every surface.
Around the area where the buildings collapsed, there are six or seven other buildings, some of them 30 stories high, that had their sides ripped off or were burned into hollow rusting hulks when the adjacent towers fell. Orange plastic mesh covers some of them. I have not seen these buildings on television, but if just one of them were the only damage from the 9/11 attack, it would still be an enormous disaster. As I walk down deserted streets strewn with debris, I stoop to pick up a thick piece of glass, about an inch square, and a bit of concrete with a speck of paint on it. Holy relics, I think, and put them in my pocket.
There are ramps carved into the Pile and five or six colossal construction cranes, and dozens of bulldozers and massive yellow clawed excavators move debris into large trailer trucks that haul it away. Rescue workers probe pockets uncovered by the excavators. Smoke rises from crevices and sometimes flames suddenly lick up, and it all reminds me of a painting of hell by Hieronymus Bosch. They’re still finding bodies and body parts, and when they do, everything stops, and those nearby all doff their hard hats and salute. About 500 yards away, I see a clutch of rescue workers standing silently with bowed bared heads, and I stand still and utter a silent prayer.
There are workers from more organizations than I can count. I wonder how they ever decide who is in charge and keep from getting in each other’s way: FDNY, NYPD, Port Authority Police, State Police, National Guard, U.S. Customs, FBI, ATF, Army Corps of Engineers, US Coast Guard, Consolidated Edison, Verizon, demolition companies, hauling companies, engineers, Mayor’s Office, Governor’s Office, FEMA, OSHA. There are other priests of the Roman Catholic and Episcopal churches wandering around who, someone tells me, are valued by the rescue workers for their blessings and their unique rituals for the dead. Several people tell me that, in these difficult circumstances, they appreciate the ancient rites and the symbols that here carry weight, and at once, lift a weight, that I have never experienced before.
On the southeast corner of the site is the FDNY firehouse of Engine 10 and Ladder 10, the first units to arrive when disaster struck. Seven men from this station house died on 9/11. There is a makeshift shrine outside with letters, flowers, candles, badges from fire departments worldwide, rosary beads, crucifixes, and children’s ubiquitous drawings. Shrines like this are all over New York — on street corners, in front of every firehouse, in subway stations and in churches, even far from Ground Zero.
As I walk around, I don’t do much of anything or have any profound conversations with anyone. When I have a conversation, it is brief, and a bit stilted, and isn’t heavy or deep. But as I walk around, the rescue workers make eye contact, wave, or nod and smile. Some even wink as if to say, “Thanks for being here.” One says to me, “Father, can I have your blessing?” I ask where he is from, and he says Kansas City, and I, a lifelong geography nerd, ask, “Which one?” The firefighter says Kansas, and I reply, “Oh, the real one!” and we both chuckle. I ask what his name is, and he says Danny. He removes his helmet, and I trace a small cross on his forehead with my thumb. Then I lay both of my hands on his head and whisper a prayer in his ear:
“Danny, I lay my hands upon you in the Name of God, beseeching him to uphold you and fill you with His grace, that you may know the healing power of his love. And may the blessing of Almighty God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit be upon you this day and remain with you and all whom you love forever and ever. Amen.”
Danny thanks me with moist eyes. My eyes are welling up, too. I feel awkward and embarrassed and inadequate. I imagine Danny thinks I am closer to God because I am a priest, but I’m sure he is. Nonetheless, it seems as if just being here unaccountably representing God — something good amid this horror — is all that I have to do, all that is necessary and useful, all that this terrible moment requires of me. I remember that priests are “symbol bearers,” and usually, I feel like an imposter whenever I think of that. But today, it is different. I believe God could have found a better symbol bearer than me, yet it seems that showing up, just being here is, inexplicably, enough for these weary men.
If there are no atheists in foxholes, there don’t seem to be any at the Pile, either. So, it would be awkward, I thought, for me to choose this particular moment to have my crisis of faith. There is sort of a role reversal going on. Who was ministering to whom? Who is the stand-in for God? It is clear that many of the people I encounter think I am the minister, that I am God’s proxy. But it is equally clear that God has touched them in ways not only beyond my experience, but beyond my imagination or my ability to explain. I have felt this way before. When I walk into the room of a dying person or encounter people who have lost a loved one to an illness or sudden tragedy, I have felt wholly unworthy and inadequate to what might be expected or required of me in that intimate moment. But this is on a far larger scale. I believe in a loving, compassionate, ever-present God. But I wonder how I can convey this certainty amid this enormous, human-made disaster. Words will not suffice, mine least of all. So, maybe I can’t help except that my inner confidence is countered in the outer certainty — or at least the appearance of certainty — of these weary men and women. My feeling of inadequacy, coupled with the rescue workers’ spiritual fortitude, is proportional to the Pile’s size. And, somehow, God is sorting this out in real-time. It must be God because I am sure it isn’t me. I am glad I came.
Some hours later, I am back at St. Paul’s, and I attend Mass with the most unlikely jumble of humanity I’ve ever seen gathered in one place. Most of them seem to be utterly oblivious to the Eucharist going on in their midst. There are chiropractors and massage therapists along the side aisles. There are volunteers serving food and rescue workers sleeping or eating lunch — some of them Jews wearing kippahs under their fire helmets and hard hats. Most of the workers are men, but there are many women, too. There are National Guard troops from the farms and forests of upstate New York, looking very young and lost here in the big city. People sit on the floor and the steps leading to the choir loft. Some of the workers who did not show much interest in the Mass when it began now find themselves drawn into the ancient ritual that promises peace and everlasting life with God, and some end up taking communion. The ones doing this for the first time take the bread and sip from the cup awkwardly, looking from side to side to make sure they’re doing it correctly, and they have tears in their eyes. This unlikely assembly is humanity in all its diversity, ambiguity, complexity, openness, brokenness, goodness, and beauty. Everyone can see that it is a chaotic mess and that it is magnificent.
Good and evil teeter back and forth, never in balance and never with one permanently dominating. It was ever thus and doubtless ever will be. But when humans find a way to fetch goodness out of tragedy, there is ample reason to persevere and to have hope, contrary to all other evidence. We might have reason to expect that there might be days ahead when goodwill permanently overpowers evil.
Late that night, after taking another slow walk around the Pile, I take the subway back to Penn Station, where I catch a train home. I lean against the window, tired, spent, now not thinking about something happening in the tunnel. I recall often having been asked, “Why do bad things like this happen?” in the days following the terrorist attacks. I would usually stumble through my answers, saying that we each have the gift of freedom and sometimes we choose to do evil things, knowing that no answer I could give would be satisfactory or anywhere near adequate. Today, I have seen so much evidence of the love of humanity for one another. Strangers were reaching out and caring for each other. I have seen all sorts of people brought together and unified by tragedy. Before the clickety-clack, clickety-clack of the train car on the tracks has its usual hypnotic effect on me, I think to myself we might just as well ask, “Why do good things like this happen?” Where does that come from? What animates that? If a society loses that collective impulse to do good, to focus on what unites instead of what divides, can it ever come back?
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