Walking with Jesus (September 14, 2001, in New York City)

Under the construction scaffolding taped to the windows on one side of a building on Park Avenue and 26th Street in New York City were hundreds of handmade posters all on 8-and-a-half by 11 inch paper all with the same question,
"Have You Seen This Person?"
One man, pictured with his family, was on the 67th floor of the World Trade Center when two planes smashed into the two 110 story towers, eventually causing them to crumble to the ground.
a woman, pictured smiling on the beach, was on the 101st floor.
a man pictured holding his clarinet was on the 52nd floor while another man pictured with a small child and golden retriever was on the 66th floor.
one man, pictured smiling, was visiting the World Trade Center for a meeting...
the hand posters seemed endless; so many people to save:
a woman with her son, a man with his wife, a woman at her desk, a guy next to his car; some photos were just head shots while others looked like they were taken from modeling portfolios. some photos were candid shots of people hanging out with friends and some were
posed.
none gave a hint that any of these people knew what would be coming on September 11, 2001
and now they were on sheets of paper on black-tinted windows on 26th Street looking much like the Vietnam War Memorial wall.
the lively faces on the hand posters would follow us through the city everywhere we went
they were on cars, in store windows, on telephone poles, on mail boxes, at bus stop shelters - everywhere they dominated an unusually quiet city
and the faces on the fliers stood in sharp contrast with the exhausted and concerned
expressions of the people walking through New York City
I love New York City
but the George Gershwin music that usually appeared in my head whenever I visited would not be playing on this day

On Wednesday, the day following the attack I told my friend Charlie, an ordained minister,
that I couldn't take just sitting around listening to the news (especially since the media, like it always does in these situations, seemed more concerned with naming this tragedy than reporting objectively on it!
For the record, “America Under Attack” won the media’s “name that disaster” game and will now take its place with other favorites, like “Horror in the Heartland” and “Terror at the Ivy Walls”)
Charlie and I decided to hit the city and see if we could help
after all, we were only an hour-and-a-half away
So, on Friday - three days after the attack - we hopped on the train
Because Charlie was a minister we had access to many areas although few needed our ssistance
and we didn't want to hang out anywhere where we weren't needed
so we walked...
to the Armory on Lexington Avenue
to Saint Vincent’s Hospital
to the Village
to as close to the World Trade Center site as the police would let us get
Unless you were a cop, fireman, emt, engineer or steel worker you weren't getting too close
All along our journey we talked to people
and each conversation was near a poster of the lively faces
“where you from?” was the question we were most frequently asked
by unusually friendly cops and firefighters.
“Connecticut,” we would say
“Great, thanks”
and all seemed genuinely grateful that people would travel to New York to help
Charlie would, of course, ask everyone how they were holding up.
“I feel like I haven't left this spot in three days,” said one cop who was stationed at the end of one of the streets that leads to the World Trade Center rubble.
“where were you when you heard about this?” one guy in the Village asked us at a Thai restaurant where we took a break to eat
that conversation lasted awhile
At the Jacob Javits Convention Center where all the workers and volunteers went to eat and rest and where a steady stream of supplies, like gloves, face masks and food were arriving like a steady, welcomed, stream I asked a firefighter where the closest fire house was located
“I wouldn't know,” he said, “I'm from Kentucky”
cop cars from Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Connecticut, Rhode Island and far beyond lined one side of the center
a fire crew from Accokeek, Maryland, who looked exhausted and shell-shocked, were resting by a car a man in a New York Yankee baseball cap, who looked like he was probably an iron worker who just finished a very emotional shift at ground zero, was leaning forward and talking to another man. The other guy, who had a Boston Red Sox baseball cap on, had a comforting hand on the guys shoulder as he listened.
Maybe this IS the end of the world, I thought.
Maybe these lively faces looking at everyone from the hand-made posters were starting to make strange things happen
this was the only place I have ever been where, like the old Grateful Dead song said, there were “strangers stopping strangers just to shake their hands”
and it was under a backdrop of a half-acre of crumbled buildings which was serving as either a grave or living hell for about 5,000 people who thought Tuesday, September 11, 2001 would just be another day in their journey through life.
These 5,000 were the lively faces whose posters lined the streets
And as we left the site to prepare for a somber ride back to Connecticut the faces followed us to Grand Central
“I'm glad I was here, but I don't know if we did any good,” I told Charlie.
“of course we did,” he said.
“we saved no one, we played no role,” I said
“but we ministered to a number of people who just needed to talk,” he said.
“we showed support just by being here and we reinforced the fact that people do care”

we saw the last of the faces as we boarded the train
but I suddenly realized the faces were not saying "save me,"
because they had to know we couldn't
and they weren’t calling for revenge
although that point will be lost on the politicians, who will wrongly spill innocent blood while confusing revenge with justice
the faces were saying "carry on"
and that, of course, we will
and I don't know how long those faces will stay with me
I think they will be around for awhile
they are welcome to stay
and the next time I go into New York City
we will all listen to some Gershwin

peace