I flew to New York City last week, three weeks after the tragedies of September 11th, having been invited to attend the screening of the movie "Ordinary Sinner" at the Independent Film Project there. I play a priest in the movie, which examines the difficulties of holding onto one's faith in a world that seeks to undo it.
Manhattan is an amazing place. The sheer level of energy on the streets lights me up like nowhere else I go. I remember my wife Leslie strapping our then two-year old son Cody onto my back one morning many years ago and the three of us setting off on a sight-seeing walk to nowhere in particular that lasted for six hours. Co was so quiet and well behaved that we had to keep checking to see if he'd fallen asleep, but his eyes remained open and wide, mesmerized by the unfolding spectacle. Like a river running between and around the buildings, vehicles in the bed of it, pedestrians on the banks, the drama of the daily lives of New York's citizens plays itself out in an intricate, surging flow that is wonderful to witness and fun to swim along with. That so many people can get so much done in so tight a space seems like a miracle to me. And never more so than now, in the aftermath.
Thanks to the diabolical sense of theatre of those who attacked the towers -- the first crash to get the attention of the nation and the focus of every available video camera; the second crash and all the rest of it to inject the unimaginably horrific images deeply and permanently into our collective memories -- this brutalizing psychic wound was inflicted on all of us. But it is so much worse for those who actually live and work in and around New York. By nature of the everyday challenges they face and come to take for granted, New Yorkers are an extremely tough and resilient group of people, but the crises they now face are as mind boggling as they are heart breaking.
No place in America has ever had so many human beings so suddenly removed from the lives of their families and friends. Nowhere in our national history have more people been beset by so much sudden and terrible grief. In response, donations, prayers and expressions of support have poured in from all over the world. All of us are by now familiar with the many organizations that have set up charitable funds to aid the families most directly affected, and if you haven't yet contributed to any of these, I urge you to do so when and if you can. No one can reverse the loss of so many precious lives, but the new hardships in the lives of those who remain can be eased by generosity. This is a time to give.
Leslie and I had dinner some years ago in the Windows of the World restaurant atop the Trade Center. It was a fine meal, enhanced by a stunning view of the city, a view that slowly dimmed to gray as fog rolled in below and left us feeling like we were somehow closer to the stars than the earth. As I made my pilgrimage toward downtown a couple of mornings ago, it was impossible not to recall that night, as the gray smoke from the still smoldering fires rose languidly up from the wreckage and drifted out over the river. This smoke bears a unique and haunting smell, something akin to burning rubber, but more complicated -- brittle and fetid at the same time, ominous in what it portends. It is unforgettable. I will never feel right in my heart until the people who first imagined such horror and caused it to happen are confronted, one by one, with the repercussions of their cruelty, and made to pay for it.
There are pictures everywhere of the faces of missing loved ones, many now bearing the marks of the wind and rain that have come and gone in the days since they were first posted. And millions of words on signs and walls and windows, especially near the site, where people have marked their sorrow, their hopes, their attempts at explanation -- and their rage.
Turning a corner in Tribeca, I happened upon the Fire Station of Ladder Company 8, and saw there beside the open door a big color photograph of Vincent Halloran. I read about Vinnie in the papers last week and saw him profiled on television, and from a friend of his family my wife and I have heard stories about his penchant for doing anonymous favors for folks. Vinnie, like so many others, was lost doing his duty. He was, by all accounts, a great fireman -- and a great man. Now, above a modest shrine of candles and flowers at the foot of the wall, he is pictured smiling out at the world, surrounded by his five young sons, the smallest of whom, a baby, is tucked away securely in the crook of his arm. Contributions to help secure the future of these boys and their mom can be sent to: Ladder 8 Family Relief Fund / 14 N. Moore Street / Tribeca, New York.
The sealed-off perimeter around the site itself reveals a series of surreal and shattering vistas. Each street corner opens to a new tableau. The whole of the obliteration covers some sixteen acres, and the public views it now one street width at a time, and at least one block removed. There are countless city, state and national officials maintaining order and managing the details of the cleanup and investigation, and so many of those who intersect with visitors are remarkably patient and accessible. There is fatigue written on most of their faces, but many of them can still muster a smile in response to a silly question or an unreasonable request. That these men and women can function with such grace in the midst of all of this is inspiring. It is one more measure, beyond the reach of its commerce and the depth of its cultural diversity, of New York City's greatness. This town has a profound soul.
One thrusting shell of tower facade still stands in the rubble, as if in defiant protest. It pulls tears from the disbelieving eyes of those who bear it witness. I want to remember it clearly, knowing that I'll be returning often in my life to touch whatever will eventually replace it. I'll bring my family, and we'll pay our respects to the people who were taken here and to the spirit of our nation's strength that will surely be measured in the rebuilding. It will take years for the financial recovery to be whole, and even longer for the emotional scars to heal, but the ground where once these buildings stood has already been made sacred. And the lessons we acknowledge in the event -- that our country and the civilization for which it stands cannot remain aloof from those who rage against it; that the sources of that rage must be examined and transformed, forcefully, patiently and with wisdom; that tomorrow is never guaranteed -- those lessons are available immediately.
On the flight home, I had several conversations with a United Airlines stewardess who happens to be a fan of General Hospital. She had visited the disaster site this week also, full of memories of her friends and colleagues who had perished on Flight 175. She knew most of the members of that flight crew personally, and she mourns for them. She also faces the cold fact that she will be laid off and lose her job in the next two weeks, a victim of the lingering fear so many of us now have of flying. (Sixteen million jobs depend on the travel industry in America.) Though obviously in pain, this delightful woman talked mostly about her plans to go back to school and broaden her education in expectation of a new career, yet to be defined. That struck a chord in me, since I'm now feeling the need to broaden my own education -- to deepen my understanding of the political dynamics that are seeking to reshape our world.
I started by reading Ahmed Rashid's book, "Taliban," which lays out the painful history of Afghanistan, and illustrates the terrible price our country paid by walking away from that ravaged country when the Soviet Union withdrew from it in 1989. We lacked the political will to undertake what would have been a trying and unpopular attempt to broker the establishment of some semblance of stable, broadly representative government. We left, instead, a chaotic void in our wake, a void ripe for malignant exploitation, into which slipped various fundamentalist tyrants in waiting, and eventually the likes of Mr. bin Laden. The void we left in that ruined country has come back to haunt us.
And speaking of haunting voids, the book reminds one that Islam, at its most fundamental, is both committed to and rendered myopic by its subjugation of the feminine perspective. So many of the younger men of the Taliban, orphaned by war and then educated in the madrassas (religious schools where the teachers and students are all male), have never known the moderating influence of a woman in their lives. What more sure-fire recipe for the supremacy of single-minded aggression than this? Is it any wonder these people would rage against the west?
Andrew Sullivan's piece in the October 7th issue of The New York Times Magazine, "This Is a Religious War," argues that the age-old need of religion to bolster and perpetuate itself with new believers is at the heart of the September 11th atrocities. He cites the horrors that were brought to bear in the name of Christianity during the Crusades and the Inquisition, reminding us that throughout history, deeply religious people have repeatedly killed in the name of God.
Sullivan points out that the genius of the American ideal lies in its recognition of the imperative of separating church and state. This precept has allowed for a remarkable diversity of religious affiliations to co-exist peacefully within the borders of one country, and has allowed the development of non-religious, intellectually based belief systems to flourish as never before. The United States of America has not only guaranteed its citizens freedom of religion, but freedom from religion as well. For this heresy, our government is condemned by religious fundamentalists of more than one persuasion, our own radical Christian right among them. Though it may not yet be apparent, it is the Constitution of the United States and the freedoms it guarantees that have come under siege in this new day. The delicacy and difficulty of effectively countering such a challenge cannot be over estimated.
But in knowledge there is power -- the power to temper scary emotions with facts; the power to make informed decisions as we choose our leaders and insist that they be held accountable for the long term consequences of what they do in our names; the power to remain clear about the values that are really at stake here, and how critical they are to the future of the human race. We need to be arming ourselves by educating ourselves -- all of us. We need to be reading and asking questions, and we need to be doing it now. Next on my personal list is the book "Jihad vs McWorld," by Benjamin Barber. Mr. Barber's vision and advice come highly recommended, and you might want to pick him up.
Meanwhile, I wish you courage and clarity. And someday down the road, when you travel to New York City, I hope you'll come to the hallowed place where the towers used to stand. Maybe you'll meet a friend there, and you can take a moment to remember the way things were, and what it felt like on the day this struggle was joined. We're off on a quest for better times now -- justice for all peoples and tolerance of our differences glimmering like jewels in the distance. To grasp them will require a long term gut check, soul check, and brain check. Personally, I like our chances.
Always, A
