UUs & the News
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UUs & the News
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Four Views From New York:
Postcard from the Edge
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I thought of this at our staff meeting on Monday, realizing that a week
before we were absorbed in the usual litter of chore and deadline, a newsletter
to be printed and meetings to be attended. Both staff meetings were about
the same, and I both welcomed and lamented that. I am about spent when
it comes to words. This account, rewriting the newsletter entirely, four
worship services, and constant conversation have exhausted my reservoir
of wisdom. At 8:48 Tuesday morning I am at home, cutting my work-out short to be
there at that time. We aren't doing anything, but it did seem wrong to
be on the treadmill at that moment so I go home. We watch the President
stand on the lawn. The screen says "moment of silence" which
makes me laugh sardonically. I think of the long pauses other nations
observed last week. Do they need a TV screen to tell them what they are
doing, seeing, feeling, thinking? But it does seem that after that moment things are different a bit. It
is Rosh ha Shanah, and that fact lifts me. The legend of the new year
and the open book and the week of making amends with neighbors strikes
me as precisely right. It is a new year. And everything that was is different
now. And I also realize this is what America is about, too. Newness, second
chances, the open future, that's what we're about. After a hasty visit to the office I am off to a Prayer Vigil being held
near Crown Heights, a part of Brooklyn where African-Americans and Caribbean-Americans
are the majority community. I am there because a couple from my church
are active in the Chamber of Commerce and they want me to offer a prayer
here. At Medgar Evers College I am seated with other dignities in the front
row, my colleague Hope Johnson to my right and a former chancellor of
the Board of Education to my left. The program is long, presenting religious
and community leaders to pray and reflect, along with musical selections.
I am most eager to hear Dr. Gardner C. Taylor, one of the pre-eminent
preachers of the last half-century and now nearing ninety years old. But
I am not relaxed as I am to pray over this congregation of people I do
not know and whose common culture is not mine. I want my hosts to be glad
and proud. During the program I am struck again and again by the devotion of this
community to the nation. Many who speak were in the armed services as
young men. All speak of defending freedom, their own as well as the nation's.
There is no lack of awareness that the promise of the nation has not come
true equally for all, and that many in the room have struggled with a
country that has been reluctant to embrace them as equals. But the idea
of America is as alive for them as much if not more than most citizens.
And in this city that in the last three years has been struggling with
the use of police power, there is a rousing round of applause for them
and an eager exhortation for those there to express our thanks by saying
so to officers and going to the precincts and showing support. And they
meant their own precincts and officers, not just those near the crash
site. Having seen a lot of boosterism and stadium-style cheering for America
in the last two or three days, this expression of love of country and
community is a jolt of hope for me. I hear it when Dr. Taylor preaches.
He takes his text from Chronicles, about the day when Solomon dedicated
the temple by an act of solemn humility, of atonement for its sins. Many
in the audience murmur the words along with him, so familiar are they.
His point is that at the zenith of worldly power, Israel bows in humility
before God. This, he teaches, means power must be wed to humility. That is the key
to greatness. Power without humility oppresses and reaps hatred. Humility
without power cannot speak truth to falsehood or resist evil when it appears.
That is the task before us. To meet that task, he says, those who have been on the margins of society
have a leadership role to play, showing the country the danger of reprisal
and the complexity of addressing those who hate. "You cannot bomb
hatred," he says to loud applause. It is short, simple, undramatic, and clear. Everyone after affirms that
he said it all. That does not stop most from adding to it, especially
the politicians. We are all quite ready for the bismillah blessing from
an imam so we can find a late lunch. Back in my office the e-mail and telephone messages are several. The
one that stands out is from a colleague in Massachusetts who has come
down as a fire chaplain. I try to get in touch but the hotel has no one
registered to her name. I am annoyed, because I wish to thank her. Indeed,
I am envious a little, as I have not been across the river yet. Several
local colleagues have been. To see and touch more fully and then to account
that for my congregation I believe is important. I have no illusions about
helping the effort, but I want an opportunity to connect people to the
place, touching the remote and frightful center of what is for most only
an idea and an image. Later in the evening, as my son Stephen and I leave for his karate class,
we encounter a procession of sorts from the Orthodox Synagogue down the
street. The young rabbi and I are acquainted and we greet one another,
"L'shanah tovah!" ['to a good year!'] They are all on their
way down to the riverside to do taschlik, the ritual casting of crumbs
on water as a symbol of emptying debris from the old year and starting
new. Rabbi Raskin says, "It is a new year, and we should have lunch
soon." Our handshake is long and strong. On the way home we meet Rabbi Lippe, another younger colleague, and we share the sidewalk a few blocks as we consider the new year. Both of us are grateful on a warm night that no one close to us or our congregations is among the lost. But we both know that the new year will be less innocent than the old one. I tell him my resolution for the new year, to blend one custom into another, is to greet everyone as though I mean it. From now on, I will say, "How are you and yours?" And I will really ask, not just say it. We embrace lightly, the second day of the new year now arrived with the vanished sun, and walk home along familiar streets swelled with casual walkers and late diners and people like us who have to buy a few things from the food store on the way home to bed. Hello Everyone:
And we read responsively the words of the Lincoln School students that decribe peace. We sang "Hashiveinu," (# 216 STLT), whose character is a lament and whose text asks to return, as in Tshuvah, repent. Then I had to preach. Thursday, Sept. 13, 2001, 2:49 PM EDT
[To our friends across the US:] Thanks so very much for the good cheer
and offer of support. … If it's any consolation to you all, we are
about as helpless as you feel. Getting in and out [of the city] is virtually
useless. There are police stationed outside synagogues and I suppose mosques.
Many streets are closed to traffic. Twice in the last two days we have
been asked to clear streets for fear of a bomb (neither of which proved
true), the most recent right outside my office. Things are still very
narrowly focused on survival and safety. Not that we sense any danger
particularly, but the city is very tense about it. But this is when the misery will begin to eat away. Even now, I feel my stress coming out as impatience and impertinence. Maybe I am different, but it seems others are short tempered as well. How much of this is rage turned inward, helplessness flailing about, fear with no place to put it?
Here in Brooklyn Heights we, like everyone else, are still counting the missing. In our interfaith community we have found but few who have perished so far. The greatest loss has been eight firefighters from our neighborhood station, which was among the first on the scene after the explosions and thus among those in the buildings when they collapsed. Another station a few blocks away also lost several that first day. Several in my congregation witnessed it all, seeing the airplanes hit
the buildings, watching the towers collapse. More than half a dozen work
in the complex, but owing to pure luck and it being primary election day,
those most likely to have been killed were not there when the catastrophe
struck. This morning the list of the missing was about 3,700. By afternoon
the number was 4,700. Life is on hold, like a holiday, but I sense a restlessness to resume life as well. There is a certain captivity we are beginning to feel: physical to be sure, unable to leave; but also emotional, as these events have overwhelmed everything and taken our lives out of their patterns and rhythms; we shall be glad when we can plan the day again. Oh to be able to deal with the hangnails of life instead. Right now the two people dealing with cancer are on the periphery, as are the twins born in the city on Friday and unable to come home yet. A woman reminded me on the phone that the marginal and neglected, such as the homeless and single elderly, are even less visible right now and even more vulnerable. Events eclipse the smaller but no less momentous moments of individual lives. I feel sorrow for those who died Tuesday in hospitals and nursing homes, and those who perish this week for less dramatic reasons but whose families are no less bereft. People say that this reminds you of what is really important, and it does. But should not everyone have the luxury of worrying about their own lives? To be boring and pedestrian may be the greatest gift we enjoy. So enjoy it, and have another boring day on us. The sun is warm and the wind is sweet. The playground, with a view of lower Manhattan and its smoldering sad skyline, was full of children yesterday. They played and laughed. And a little child shall lead. Tuesday evening, Sept. 11, 2001
It has been a day like no other. Still unwashed, I heard a loud sound this morning in my home office here in Brooklyn Heights. Thinking it was part of construction not far away I did not at first pursue it. Loud noises are not unprecedented in the Big City. But then I heard people shouting and the sound of feet running. I left my small office, which faces away from the Brooklyn waterfront, and went to my living room which has a sidelong view of lower Manhattan. Down on the street there were only a few people but they were heading toward the promenade that faces the city. I turned my head and saw the twin towers belching smoke and knew something horrid was happening. At first I assumed a fire had broken out, and turned on the television to learn more. Only then I did I hear that an airplane had collided with it. I thought of the airplane that hit the Empire State Building after the war. But within moments I found out that it was not one but two aircraft. My wife Wendy returned home, shaken by what she had seen. We sat down to watch the reports and watched the videotape of the second plane plowing into the tower. I remembered a scream I heard when the second explosion happened. It must have been the cry of someone who saw what happened. What a burden to bear. And then we learned about the crash at the Pentagon. Speculation about terrorism turned to certainty, and the sense of dread leapt up in us. The telephone rang and my office asked me if I knew. I told them we were watching even now. I hurried to take my shower and just as I was getting dressed I heard my wife cry out and hurried back to the living room as the television and living room window showed the south tower crumbling to the ground. A cloud of dust rose like a storm, billowing slow and ominous, obscuring
our view. I thought that this cloud of gray dust was moments ago one of
the signatures of the city and in it were mingled the flecks and bits
of actual people, their clothes and lives obliterated and now hurtling
toward us. It was incomprehensible in scope, more shattering to the I hastened to church, and my wife to the school our boys attend. Just after I arrived we heard the last rumble as the second tower fell. The cloud rushed again. All day long our eyes have burned. The smell of burnt debris permeates the neighborhood. My jacket was lightly covered with gray flecks as I leafleted the area for a prayer service we are hosting tonight. I saw a friend standing on the street corner terrified. Her children attend school in lower Manhattan. Her husband was taking them. She and we do not know what will become of them. That her husband is Assan Farooqi is a silent fact we all know is very present as well. At Plymouth Church, broadsides printed up to announce a prayer service for "the city" are scratched out to say instead :"the country." The front door is open, something never done any more. As I pass other houses of worship, their doors are open too. There is little traffic. Along the streets people huddle by telephone booths, their cell phones not working. As the broadcast tower for many television and radio stations was on the North Tower, only one station is available, although the cable system is fine. So also is our DSL line. Old-fashioned wires are still going, unless they went through lower Manhattan. The subways are down. People stand about aimless, unable to go anywhere or do anything. A tourist with map in hand is asking how to get back to Manhattan. We hear there is Long Island Railroad service and tell her how to get to the Flatbush Avenue station. It's directly under the Williamsburg Bank building, a tower in its own right -- and I wonder about that. There is uncertainty, but not panic. Not knowing what lies ahead, even if one can get home, makes for a subtle tension and a pervasive gloom of heart that echoes the gloom of the sky. Back in my church office I am on the phone at every moment, finding parishioners,
asking, telling, seeking. Slowly our members are found, or even call in
themselves. How fortunate that at such times people think to call us,
knowing we would care and tell others. My Episcopal colleague and staff
are calling each and every member in their Stories begin to circulate. Between phone calls I set up a prayer service that evening. I am not alone. In addition to mine and that which I saw at Plymouth, there is a service at the Episcopal Church and the Lutheran. I consult with the Lutheran pastor and suggest an interfaith service. We try to create one but we end up with separate services. I am fortunate though. My colleague from the conservative synagogue will share the service with me. Somewhere in the middle of this I call parents and other family, assuring them of our well being. It is ironic that my sister and brother in law live almost as close to the Pentagon as we do to the WTC. My mother is not happy. Also, I seem to be the only one with good telephone access to the city, and so we get calls for others and pass them along. My colleague, Hope Johnson, cannot get in from her home in Park Slope. Her daughter attends high school at 77th and Amsterdam. The former calls me first. I leave a message with our chaplain, Orlanda Brugnola, who lives not far from there, about the daughter. The daughter calls and I tell her about the chaplain being close by. Then I call the mother, my partner. She is not home but her sister, the aunt, is. Relief all around. Of all things, I must mail something, so I walk toward the main office.
It is locked tight for security I presume. I leave my overdue bills in
an outside box, wondering when they will be picked up. On the way back
I see half burned papers in the street; they are mortgage tables and financial
manuals. It is shocking and yet perfectly sensible. And I, Mid-afternoon I go home to change clothes. I walk back toward the river,
and the cloud of dust and smoke now obscure the entire lower skyline.
To the north I can still see the bridge and midtown. The north wind now
drives the plume of dust and smoke south, a strong orange color created
from the sun behind it. North of lower Manhattan the sun I stay at home for a while, watching the news, learning nothing new.
There is a weird economy of information. Everyone is desperate to find
things out, but there is little actually known. So eager are people, including
me, that we grasp anything and repeat it without even thinking. Rumors
are everywhere, as poor information far outnumbers I change into a suit and walk back from the riverfront, going against the current of people eager to see, to know. Along the way I buy a sandwich and soft drink for supper. I haven't eaten anything but a piece of homemade peach pie our secretary brought in first thing in the morning. Her husband made it, from peaches grown in their own backyard. In the office I am compiling materials for the service. A local folk
singer called and asked to sing. I said yes, coaching him to find something
consoling and honest. I want something from both scriptural traditions,
Bible and Qu'ran. I happen upon psalm 140: I eat my sandwich and watch the news in my office. Nothing new and yet everything. My family arrives. I print a little cheat sheet and assemble my xerox copies. The sanctuary is open and I sit down to play the piano, hymns, while people come in. Facing away I don't know how many are there, which is good as I have not played for months. Will the folk singer and the rabbi make it? The folk singer arrives. One moment of relief. The rabbi arrives, in sweat clothes. I think it odd until I see he is wearing a firefighters coat and carrying a helmet. On his back it says Chaplain Potasnik. He has been in the city. I am amazed and grateful. When I look around I see 130 or so people, mostly strangers. Now is the time. All that is worth recalling is that Rabbi Potasnik brought the reality into the room with him, and with it the courage of those there. He told especially of the loss of Father Judd, a full time fire chaplain, and two other chiefs, caught in the collapse. And when he finished telling us this I asked everyone to pray and in that time to say out loud the names of those dear to them at this hour. The choking sobs were as loud as the names. Finally, my folk singer, Dan, sang. He said he went up on his roof to think and finally chose a song, "Up Above My Head," which he played in a bluesy minor key, each verse ending with "There Must be a God Somewhere." We all sang and then the rabbi blessed us. It was not enough, but it was enough. At the doorstep, the smell and dust were appalling. The wind has died
down, and it all just hung in the air. I wished everyone well and blessed
as many as seemed to need it. How odd to bless others when I am so in
need of it myself. It is not my customary form and feels foreign, but
this evening demanded it. A reporter from a local paper spoke with It was eight o'clock, and night had fallen. Dust and smoke could be seen by the light of the street lamps. We walked home in the silent streets, as though the air was muffling the sound of feet and life. I am terrified, as terrorism intends. And I am enraged. Perhaps someday
I shall be able to understand how someone else's rage could drive them
to such wretched acts, but I cannot imagine it ever being right or good.
Perhaps someday I shall be able to comprehend the corroding power of powerlessness
and how it gives birth to violence, but I cannot I also worry that the principles (if such a word can be used for those who do such things) that propel such an act, point ultimately toward genocide. A half-century after the holocaust, notwithstanding the injustices and mistakes made by the state of Israel, the alternative that impels such an act is another holocaust. And I fear that we are all now being asked to put our lives on the line to prevent that. Not even asked, simply put there without our choice or knowledge. That's what happened to those on board the flights. It happened to those in the Trade Center. It happened to those who were killed in Pennsylvania and even those in the Pentagon. It may yet happen again. Will it end? At this moment I don't know, and I dare not think about it as my rage at this moment is too large to understand. Instead, I shall have to find a way to live with it, because the alternative is even worse.
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For
example, instead of flowers we created an 'altar' from the half-burned
papers that wafted down on us Tuesday morning, resting on a tallis, flanked
by a Qu'ran and cross. Knowing many would wish to light a candle, we set
them on our side aisle chapel along with an open blank book for people
to use throughout the service. They did. 
Smoke
continues to rise, as smoldering fires continue to burn, even flaring
up. A fresh fire sent new black smoke into the sky before 9, though there
was no news of anything dire. The cloud trails up along Manhattan from
south to north since a warm front sent in southerly breezes early Wednesday.
This morning the authorities were chasing someone from New Jersey into
Staten Island, essentially locking the island up (easy being an island,
I suppose).