Presence and Pain at Ground Zero
(From 1999 to 2006, I served as Pastor of Wilton Baptist Church, Wilton, CT, a town deeply tied to New York City and one that suffered casualties on 9/11/2001. I wrote this reflection on September 25, 2002, just after the Second Anniversary observance of 9/11. -bguffey)
After the 9/11 terrorist attacks, I twice visited the World Trade Center site with young adult friends and family who were new to the City and wanted to visit the site to pay their respects to those who died there. The first visit, coming one month after the attacks, was especially powerful for me. Thousands of us walked, almost silently, down Broadway through SoHo into the Financial District, as if we were a huge perambulatory funeral procession. As we neared and passed St. Paul’s Chapel, on the corner of Broadway and Fulton, the crowd slowed briefly to scan notes posted and banners draped on the church’s tall iron fence, to view and reflect on objects of devotion—flowers, candles, flags, photographs and stuffed animals—left as public display of confusion, shock and desire to console. As the ground underfoot grew uneven, I realized we were walking on a layer of dust, which covered the sidewalk and road. The dust was part of the remains of the Towers; “ashes to ashes, dust to dust.” I do not think I will forget that first walk down Broadway and the power of being present, of being a witness to the aftermath of grave evil and to the sense of deep loss.
As the first anniversary of 9/11 approached, I found myself reflecting on the images of the devastation, both those I had seen firsthand and those broadcast on television. I began to feel as though a small window had opened, and that I could see and feel a bit of what it might have been like to live in London in 1944, or Germany or Japan in 1945, or Sarajevo in the 1990s, to live in a war zone. In imagining the scenes of physical devastation again, I also remembered what in those days became an even stronger image for me: the scenes of families and friends of the dead and missing, gathered in the weeks and months after 9/11, in their grief on the streets and at public gatherings for the victims and their families. Often, many of these wounded human brothers and sisters could be seen holding photographs of the dead and missing, lifted for the world to see. I now see those photographs as pleas for presence, as deep calls for remedy to painful, startling absence cutting through hearts, bodies and souls. Perhaps, too, those photos lifted were calls to those of us whose pain was not so immediate to acknowledge the lives of those lost while we also help nurture grieving brothers and sisters through the devastation they have experienced and many still are experiencing.
As the anniversary approached and I thought about these images, other sisters and brothers came to mind, too, other wounded sisters and brothers holding “photographs,” in a metaphorical sense. I saw these others holding images of loved ones whose presence they miss, too, whose absence carries pain and longing. I saw parents whose children are grown and gone, not just physically but emotionally alienated, holding photographs of sons and daughters at the ages of two or three, and saying, “I’d like to go back to this presence.” I saw ex-spouses holding photos of a first wife or husband saying, “I didn’t do it right the first time. I wish I could go back and try again to be present to the presence she/he offered then.” I saw some holding photos that were portraits of themselves, portraits from a time of innocence, naiveté and idealism, held by people who wondered what had happened to the person they thought they would become. In these images, the pain of absence and desire for presence conveyed the power of loss and longing.
In writing about the book of Lamentations, Walter Brueggemann reminds us that this poetic text was used by Jews for the holy day each year of grieving over the destruction of Jerusalem. The destruction of Jerusalem was seen as paradigm for their lives and was mourned in the scripture by “asking haunting questions about being ‘forgotten’ and ‘abandoned’ by God.”
I remember my affliction and my wandering, the bitterness and
the gall. I well remember them, and my soul is downcast within me.
YET this I call to mind and therefore I have hope: Because of the
Lord’s great love we are not consumed, for the LORD’s compassions
never fail. They are new every morning; great is your faithfulness.
I say to myself, “The Lord is my portion; therefore I will wait
for the Lord.” [Lamentations 3:19–24]
“What odd speech the people of God are about. What odd speech. To speak of remembrance when the soul feels abandoned; to speak of healing, nurturing presence when we sense God’s absence; and to speak of compassion, hope and grace when staring into the abyss of death.”
We are an odd people, a people who, through the voicing of sadness and grief, fully voiced in community, begin to move toward healing. We sing Zion’s songs a long way from Zion. We sing as those who grieve with hope. We sing affirming the reality of our grieving, the reality of painful absence, the deep desire for presence and the fact of our yearning for God in fullness as meaning we have been given a taste of God, of truth, of good, of holiness, of love and of Holy Presence. We hurt because we loved and are loved. We can bear with one another the pain for we have the promise of return to Love as birthright of the baptized.
On the evening of Wednesday, September 11, 2002, over 650 people of all faiths represented in the town of Wilton gathered in the sanctuary of Our Lady of Fatima Roman Catholic Church to pray, to sing, to remember, to console and to hope. As we prayed, I felt solidarity with the Spirit of God. I felt healing was not just possible but was happening and that our future in God is assured. I felt hope being realized in our midst.
During the day and evening that anniversary Wednesday, a high wind visited our town, winds so strong trees and power lines came down. As we gathered at the church, the wind was blowing still, swirling around us. After the service, I heard a child in attendance wonder aloud if the wind had been the memories of those who had died returning to say that it’s okay to be sad and, holding them in our hearts, it’s okay to move on into a new day. Not a bad thought at all, from a child paying attention. I think, though, the “Wind” we are feeling these days is One that “blows where it chooses” and chooses to be Presence to God’s children in the depths of our despair to lift us up in God’s time toward wholeness, more present to one another and God than we thought we ever could be.
Still yearning for peace,
Bob Guffey
