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NEW YORK UNEASY
"September 17, 2001"
Rachel and I have talked many times since September 11, 2001, when one hijacked plane crashed into the World Trade Center One and within minutes a second hijacked plane crashed into World Trade Center Two, bringing the two tallest buildings in New York City down, along with a number of other adjoining structures.
At full capacity, the World Trade Center Towers once held approximately 40,000 workers. Now they are completely destroyed, and to the best of my knowledge, hold not one single living soul.  Because the first attack happened shortly before 9:00 a.m., not all workers were at their desks.
Some evacuations were very successful; some were confused and resulted in the loss of life. Of course, no one imagined that a second plane would crash into Two World Trade Center within minutes of the first attack, so in
order to avoid creating panic among people in the second tower, many people were advised to stay put. The simple reason is that general panic in a confined space can also cause death.
As I write, approximately 5,000 people are dead and only two hundred bodies have been identified. This is six days after the crash, after heroic rescue and recovery
efforts were made and resulted in the deaths of approximately 300 firefighters, including the men who made up the top Fire Department command structure. Over a
hundred New York City police officers also died. The World Trade Center was operated by a multistate entity known a the Port Authority which employed a large
well-paid security force, and dozens of those officers died as well.
 It is not as though New Yorkers are not attempting to rescue the living and recover the dead. They are, with all their might. It is simply the mechanical savageness of the attack has
apparently sent many of the missing to their various heavens without the benefit of a laying out of the body and the sanctity of a funeral. The people who conducted this cruel attack are themselves dead,
and the majority of those caught in destruction's path have simply returned to ashes without the benefit of a benediction.
If you could see the scene, you would understand the desolation and unholiness of
this ungodly destruction. When New Yorkers look for the World Trade Center, as they do out of unconscious reflex, they see gigantic clouds of smoke obscuring the absence
of two of the world's tallest buildings, once the anchor of downtown New York. There are no lights, no outline of the simple tall blocks that once stood so confidently against
the sky. Clouds of smoke burning from deep inextinguishable fires make the scene ghostly, ghastly and confusing, and it sometimes seems as if one looked hard enough,
one could see the World Trade Center again if that confounded smoke that confuses the eyes so badly would simply clear.
All over the City, there are signs posted for missing loved ones, makeshift altars,
bouquets of dead flowers and candles burning. Pa per flags generated by computer
programs are posted in windows everywhere, and hucksters sell the small American flags children used to wave on the Fourth of July. No living bodies have been retrieved for days, and the dead, when they can be found among
the smoking ruins, are not whole shells without the soul, but seared pieces of unrecognizable flesh.
There are so many stories to tell of the past week, and I will attempt to tell some of
them in the next few days. However, before more events overtake us, such as whatever horrible retribution this mighty country chooses to exact on the person or country chosen
to carry the blame, I wanted to introduce you to the present condition of an area I once knew as well as my own neighborhood; for indeed, it was the neighborhood of my
employment for six years of my life. I knew the World Trade Center when it was a seedy government-sponsored project struggling to succeed; when the shops inside were
uninspired and the environment around it full of the homeless; I knew it as it started to succeed and government offices gave way to paying commercial tenants, including
mighty brokerages and law offices, and the shops started to improve; I knew it when the adjacent World Financial Center was built, and an elevated pedestrian walkway connected the Tow ers to an exquisite conservatory of giant palm trees; I knew it after parts of it were bombed by bunglers in
1993 and rebuilt; I took my sixteen year old daughter there many times when she was a small child, to see the view or to play along the waterfront on the west side; I knew it as the backdrop for dozens of fireworks
displays watched from Brooklyn rooftops; I knew it from the window of a jet plane just a few weeks ago as my daughter and I circled the City to land at LaGuardia, arriving home
from vacation in Minnesota.
Let me tell you what is still standing. The federal post office, directly across the
street from the Towers and adjacent to 7 World Trade Center (which also fell), built when James A. Farley was Postmaster General under Franklin Roosevelt, still stands, barely damaged. St. Paul's Church,
built when New York City was a colonial town in competition with Newport, Boston, and Philadelphia, is still standing as are many of the graves of the first colonial settlers. In
the church is the roped off pew of George Washington, who worshipped there during the grave battles of Long Island during our prolonged Revolutionary War. Washington
also stopped to worship there after his inauguration as America's first President. St. Paul's was built when New York City was just a struggling provincial town, and no one
knew the greatness that would one day surround it. St. Paul's is an Episcopal church, and until two years ago, one could pay a quarter, light a genuine candle, and kneel on a worn needlepoint stool to pray in a time  of spiritual crisis. Then the fire marshals made the church remove the rows of
candles on the grounds that a lit candle could burn the venerable church to the ground, despite the fact that the candles had been reverently lit for three centuries without incident.
Now, no one is insisting upon the extinquishment of the thousands of candles burning all over New York tonight on streets, sidewalks and windowsills, as we all struggle to say a proper
prayer or Kaddish for the dead. Rosh Hashanah, the New Year for the Jews, started at sundown. The usually happy holiday will be soured by the tragedy of the last week, but perhaps some will find
a respite from the agony. The San Gennaro Festival, the harbinger of fall in New York City, was pushed back by the crisis, but its lights are swinging brightly in Little Italy tonight. The
crowds are much smaller than usual. The Mets play tonight, and the Yankees will play tomorrow night, after the interruption of an another fine
season for the Yanks and a wild roll of good luck for the downtrodden Mets.
I am certain that New York City has within it a phoenix struggling to be reborn, but
first we must taste the hot bitterness of these smoking ashes.
Your New York Uneasy Correspondent.
all photos and text © 2001 by Sarah Scott
MINNESOTA FOX TALES
Return to the Fold
I had an interesting conversation last Sunday, when I lapsed from my status as a lapsed
churchgoer, and showed up at the local Episcopal service. I became a sometime follower of the Episcopal church a few years ago, very much by accident. My dad, a few
years ago, in pursuit of a suitable wife, began going to the Episcopal church, and I went along to give him company, or rather, Jerry and I did. Having not found a mate there,
my dad moved on to the Methodist church, and was eventually successful. He and his bride, Dolly, now attend the Methodist church in Eveleth.
Jerry and I continued to go episodically to the Episcopal service, where, even though I was always confused as to whether I should sit, stand, kneel, and whether we were
reading from the hymnal or the prayer book, we enjoyed the fellowship, and of the leadership of the priest, Roger Weaver.
My roots, as I may have mentioned, are with the Congregational Church, to which my family belonged when I was a child. These beginnings came from my mother's family,
and her family before her, who had moved to Iowa from New England. I remember as a child that it was a church of great joy and compassion. We had a minister who was a
first-generation German-American, and had spent time in a concentration camp in Nazi Germany, no doubt because of his beliefs.
He was a man of great faith and great love. He also sang very well, and it was thrilling to hear him and the choir each Sunday. At the start of each service, he lead the choir,
as they sang the processional and marched from the nave at the back of our small church, forward to the alter. It was a beautiful and rousing processional hymn, loving, joyful, and life-affirming. 
I was as much aware of the rustling of their
robes, the set of their feet, and the steadfastness of their faith, of this army of the Lord towering over me as they passed by my small form, as I was of the music itself. My dad was a member of the choir,
and I always saw him as he marched by, but no one's voice rang as loud or as true as our minister's.
I only remember now, two of his sermons. The first I remember because I had painted
a picture of the church and presented it as a gift. The minister put it on an easel and made it an object of the sermon, to my squirming embarrassment. But I will not forget his message, in which he noted the
people gathered around the church in the painting, and reminded us that the people are the church.
In another, or perhaps as the part of the
same sermon, he talked about a man who walked down the street and saw a group of people trying to dislodge two cars whose bumpers had stuck together. He told us that
the man did not falter, assuming his small frame would be of little help, but fell in, jumping with the others on the bumper, and his was just the extra weight which was
needed to accomplish the task. Here was a message of service that even a small child could understand.
In years that followed, both the minister and choir director died young of cancer, as did
my dad's very kind boss, and these were events my father could not reconcile with the idea of a loving God. There were church politics too, with the merger of the
Congregationalists with the United Church of Christ. My parents fell away from the church.
When I became a teenager, I joined the Methodist church, which was a mile away from
us. Because my parents didn't go, I walked to church each Sunday. Here too, was a kind and loving preacher, Rev. Hager, who gave thoughtful sermons. Paul was his
favorite disciple, and was quoted often, and I believe that Rev. Hager was a minister of great compassion, as well as a fine intellect. The messages were always those taught
by Paul, messages of Love, of forgiveness, and compassion.
I got a great deal from his sermons, as well as from the social life of the Methodist Youth Fellowship (MYF).
At church last Sunday were a visiting Episcopal priest, Margaret Thomas, who officiated at the service, and Rev. Ken Wellman, recently retired from the local
Methodist church, who is not allowed to attend his own church for two years according to certain edicts put forth by the church. Ken and his wife Shirley are friends of ours, and they know my church history.
Ken, the Methodist minister, and Margaret, the Episcopal priest, who had not met before, were having a grand time after the service at social hour, discussing the politics
and history of their respective churches, including the historical bond between the Episcopalians and Methodists. Apparently the Revolutionary War played a part in the
split, but I don't remember the history relayed more specifically than that. Margaret, in turns out, was raised as a Congregationalist, but joined the Episcopal church when she
married her husband many years ago. Despite her background, she confessed to a secret fondness for the trappings, uniforms, and rituals of the Episcopalians.
I somehow came in for a certain amount of gentle ribbing regarding the status of those of the United Church of Christ, who for those who don't know, are so anti-papist that
they have gone far away from the hierarchy still seen in the Episcopal and Methodist churches, which, although Protestant, still have Bishops and well-defined organizational
structure. The Congregationalists, from what I know from my childhood, can best be described as one of the most anti-authoritarian of the Protestants, believing in no
central authority to the point of allowing each church to select their own minister.
As we talked, jokes were made about the Congregationalists' history and Ken
commented that he thought of Congregationalists as folks who worry that somewhere someone might be having fun. (Congregationalist's roots are also closely tied to the
Calvinists.) Of course I knew Ken was just having fun and trying to provoke a response from me. His real concern, regarding those of other Christian faiths was however,
reserved for certain of the religious right, where he said, in all the preaching he heard, he never heard the word "love" spoken.
I had come to church that Sunday, grieving and terribly troubled about the events of the past week. I sought comfort, although I did not know what exactly what it was I sought, I
knew this was where I needed to be. It was a positive and affirming experience to be with these good people in fellowship. All over the world, I imagine, others, in their own
way, are finding the need to reaffirm their own religious beliefs. I don't remember all the words of the hymn, but I am reminded of one from my childhood with the lines:
"stand up, stand up for Jesus, soldiers of the cross."
By this I in no way wish to offend any of my friends who are Jews or Moslems,
Catholics, or possibly other religions. I have no quarrel with those who are not religious, either. And especially, I do not want to see another religious crusade fought
in the Middle East, or at home. I think of "standing up" for my faith in the sense of reaffirming my belief in a God of love, in a religious belief that values all human life. This
is the type of soldier I wish to be.
I also remember my favorite childhood hymn:
"Jesus loves the little children,
All the children of the world,
Red and Yellow, Black and White,
All are one within his sight;
Jesus loves the little children of the world."
While murderers should be brought to justice, at the same time, we must continue to
love one another. We are all the children of God, I believe.
In that sense of brotherly love, my love goes out to all of you.
Dot
your faithful correspondent,
© 2001 by Rachel Scott
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