On Monday Nov. 19, 2001, I
boarded a bus in South Station for Manhattan.
I traveled with fellow deacon, Daphne Noyes. We were responding to a call for help from
deacons in New York, to serve as chaplain at the World Trade Center site. A site known as the HellHole, the Pit, the
Pile, Ground Zero. We arrived early, met
our contact person, Keith, and headed down Fulton Street to the temporary
morgue that was set up just a few yards from what was left of the twin towers.
Once
in the morgue we met those chaplains whom we were relieving. One was a Rabbi and one a Catholic
Priest. We discussed the importance of
offering prayers over the remains that would be appropriately ecumenical for
civilian casualties. We chose to pray
with the Psalms, the 121st and the 23rd. Then we were briefed on our duties. We were to wait until we got a call that one
of the spotters had found remains. Then
we were to go with the EMTs into the hole to pray with the laborers and fireman
who were there. We would accompany the
remains to the morgue where a medical examiner would determine, if in fact,
there were human remains present and whether or not the remains were that of a
person of service, a fireman or policeman.
If so, the body bag would be draped with an American flag. We were to offer prayers for the deceased and
for the men and women working there and an honor guard would stand watch while
the flag draped litter was carried to an ambulance to be transported to the
main morgue at Bellevue Hospital.
- I have never prayed so hard
in my life. I prayed for those who lost
their lives. I prayed for the men and
women who had survived. I prayed for
those of us who felt distant and helpless in the face of such an evil act. And I prayed for myself - that I would not shrink
from the horrific sight of burned mortality, that I would have the right words
to offer when we cried, that I would not get sick from the smell.
After
a short time, Keith took us out of the morgue to walk the perimeter and to meet
and talk with some of the people working on the site. As we approached the Hole the smell of acrid,
moist air grew strong. I reached for my
respirator, but hesitated wanting somehow to feel with all of my senses in
order to try to grasp what had happened here.
There were piles and piles of colorless soot, twisted steel, junk. Everywhere I looked there were huge digging
machines, taking bite after bite out of the junk and placing it on the side of
the hole. Then the jaws would sift and
sift to allow the spotters time to look for buried equipment, clothing, or
burned flesh and bones. There was a
constant trail of smoke rising from various spots. The pile was still burning deep within its
bowels. Each time the jaws would pull up
a hot steel girder the smoke would increase, the smell would become stronger,
and the water cannon would send long streams of water high into the air and
flood the burning hole. Clouds of steam
would rise up like a mushroom cloud. As
we walked we saw and heard, off in the distance, a wrecking ball as it
demolished piece after piece of the Customs House in one loud crash after
another. Steel and ash got loaded onto
great dump trucks and flat beds that made there way out of Manhattan to Fresh
Kill, the dump site that has become the resting place for the once great
buildings. Each truck was washed under
overhead sprinklers before it left the site.
Everything gets washed before it leaves Ground Zero, trucks, trash, boots,
and hands.
As
we walked around the site we were greeted by smiles and waves. Men and women who were grateful for a
listening ear. Before I left Boston, I
wondered what our place would be here. I know now. As men and women we have no
place, but God does and we are privileged to be offered an opportunity to
remind the phenomenal men and women working there that God is there with them.
We offer some order and control over the process of removing the remains and
for that ritual the laborers and the men of service seem to be very grateful. I
rode around the site one night on a buggy with a contractor who had been in
Tower 1. He escaped but a laborer that he had laid off two weeks before had
gotten a job on the 110 floor. We talked for a while about being a survivor and
how much that can hurt and how hard you work in the aftermath. We reminded each
other of God's peace and parted. He had a really nice smile.
Thanksgiving Day the Red Cross
had neglected to schedule anyone to relieve us so we worked on – 37 hours. I slept for a while at St. Paul’s
Church. St. Paul’s is a church that is
located on the corner of Broadway and Fulton, just two blocks from the heart of
what was the World Trade Center. St.
Paul’s was covered by ash and debris in the tragedy there but the structure
itself was not heavily damaged. Almost
immediately after the disaster the people of St. Paul’s converted the church to
a shelter for the workers at the Pile.
They have provided clothing, food, beds, medical help, and a spiritual
refuge for literally thousands of men and women who entered there exhausted -
physically, mentally, and spiritually.
Every inch of open space is covered with notes of thanks and
encouragement from people all over the world.
Early on the morning of
Thanksgiving the digging stopped as spotters had seen the bodies of two firemen
and the partial remains of several civilians.
Daphne went into the Pit while I waited and prayed as each bag was
brought into the morgue. I have never
felt so helpless in my life. But I have
also never felt so privileged.
Privileged to have served.
Privileged to have offered reassurance of God’s presence and love. Privileged to have walked along the last few
feet to the vehicle that would carry those heroes away.
The great plumes of gas, steam, and debris that rise up out of the pit each
time the digger hits a pocket of hot metal - set beside the sacredness of the
effort that is going on there are a constant reminder of God’s presence. Man cannot bring life back from the pit. Only God can do that. But what I saw there was the human expression
of God’s work through the work of those men and women. God and man are about the business of
cleaning up evil's mess. Ground Zero is
holy ground and the hands of the men and women who struggle there are holy
hands. The evil that visited there
wanted to create darkness, but the darkness is giving way to the light of
compassion, the light of self-sacrifice, the light of love.
