Tower Stories

by Damon DiMarco

  Now in those first few days, do you remember all the talk about missing people? Posters of the missing went up all over the city. Of course—again—there were no survivors. But we didn’t know that then.

  There was an article in the paper that said if you’re a family member and you’re looking for someone, you could check lists from all the hospitals. And there was a center set up at the New School, at one of their buildings. On 12th Street, I think it was. I went down there to help people, to counsel them. But there wasn’t a lot to do.

  The next day, I went back to Chelsea Piers. I was still looking for a way to contribute. And this is where the ministry kind of started.

  A police cruiser came up to me. The police officer leaned out and said, “Do you want to go down there?”

  I was wearing my Roman collar, so I was easy to recognize. I said yes.

  “Get in,” he said.

  I’ll never forget it. We drove from Chelsea Piers. I was in the backseat with a psychiatrist. I think the police officer had just sort of picked him up, too. We drove further and further south. That’s when I started to see how things were.

  See, if you were in Manhattan … say, near the 40s and 50s … you couldn’t really tell something was wrong. I mean, sure, there was less traffic. And there was the smell. Other than that, though, things seemed pretty normal.

  But then we kept driving down past 14th Street. And you started to see, like … ash. We kept going south, and I saw fires burning all over the place. This was on September 13.

  We pulled right up to the site. I got out. The psychiatrist said, “Good luck.” The car drove away.

  I was by myself at the Pile.

  It was really overwhelming, like a scene from a war movie. Terrifying. The scale of it. These huge jagged remains of the building. And it was still on fire, still smoking. Other buildings nearby were still burning, too. And the smell was … well. You knew you were standing next to a grave.

  I saw hundreds of uniformed personnel from every possible agency. Like an alphabet soup of initials: OSHA and CIA and FBI and army people. Policemen and firemen. This was before any sort of order had been imposed on the place. In a few weeks or a few days, maybe, there would be fences. But I just walked right in. Back then, even the term “Ground Zero” was new.

  I remember looking around and wondering what I could possibly do. And here I thank my Jesuit training. Because, I thought, I cannot work in the morgue. I just didn’t think I was capable of doing that. But I thought that at least I could minister to the rescue workers. So that’s what I started to do.

  When I say minister, I mean trying to help them. You listen to them. “How are you?” That sort of thing. Most of this is what we call a ministry of presence. In the same way as if you were a firehouse chaplain or a police chaplain, you help people to find God where they are. To know God’s present among them.

  But you know what was funny? The people I met were more solicitous of me. I kept hearing, “How are you doing, Father? Are you okay? Is this difficult for you?” It was so generous.

  Everyone I saw was so other-directed. Other-centered. This was evidenced by their already being down there. I found it very moving.

  So that’s what I did for a couple of weeks. I was walking around, ministering, helping people. By that point, we knew there were no survivors. It was just rescue workers. Then I brought other Jesuits down and we celebrated Mass there, which was incredible.

  I wrote about this in my book Searching for God at Ground Zero. Which, actually has reminiscences that are probably more accurate. Because, you know, it was twenty years ago.

  Which I still can’t believe. I just can’t believe it.

  My experience of Ground Zero was one where the Holy Spirit was present. It was a place of generosity and love, community and union. Charity, concord, and service.

  There were all these people working for others. And remember, you had people coming from all over the country. In those early days, anyone would come in. Firefighters, sure, but also … there were these women from the Midwest who’d set up a candy stand. I’ll never forget that.

  So while, for many, Ground Zero was a place of Good Friday—the suffering, dying, and burial of Christ—I saw a different aspect. I saw it as a place of Easter Sunday. Because there was a sense of new life there. Both these things present at the same site.

  What do I mean by the term “Holy Spirit?” I mean God’s presence. An active presence. And that’s important. Because you could say that God’s presence is everywhere, the idea that God’s spirit pervades the world as a sort of benign presence. But I believe God’s Spirit impelled those people to listen to their conscience. “Go and help,” it said. And they listened. That’s the active spirit I’m talking about. This sense of the Holy Spirit drawing people together.

  I’ll never forget this. One day, there was sort of like a tourist boat docked at the river nearby. This was on a Sunday. And there was a ton of food down at the site because, if you remember, restaurants were donating all this food. And a lot of people working at the site would go and eat their meals on this boat.

  So this Sunday, I was there. We had celebrated Mass outside. Like I said, an interesting, very moving experience. And after Mass it was lunchtime, so my fellow Jesuits and I lined up to go on this boat.

  It had two floors, as I recall. Two levels for dining. And when I walked on, I saw this scene of, if you can imagine, nurses, doctors, police officers, firefighters, CIA, FBI, volunteers. Everyone eating together. And all I could think of was the Eucharist, the heavenly banquet. This beautiful image of everyone breaking bread together, which is a very Christian image. An image of unity and togetherness. For me, it was another experience of the Holy Spirit.

  But get this. After I’d eaten, I got off the boat and looked back. What’s the boat called? The Spirit Boat. Written on the side in big letters.

  The Spirit Boat.

  And I thought, well, of course.

  Why did God let 9/11 happen? The answer to that question is, we don’t know.

  The deeper answer, of course, is free will.

  The terrorists who flew those planes into the Twin Towers and into the Pentagon and in Pennsylvania … they had free will. Meaning they were able to choose between doing good and evil. And they chose evil. That’s part of the world we live in.

  But you know … “Why does evil happen?” is a question that saints and theologians have grappled with for 2,000 years. And there’s still not a satisfactory answer.

  When I talk to a person who self-identifies as a believer in Christ and they ask me that question, I ask them to give their own perspective on it first. Then I listen to where they’re coming from. Because I think that’s important. I’ll ask them why they’re asking that question.

  Usually it has to do with some suffering in their own lives. And I see if I can help them to find God in the midst of the suffering. Then, only at the end do we talk about what’s called the mystery of suffering.

  The mystery of suffering is … well, let’s put it like this. We have some propositions that don’t match, am I right? God is supposed to be all good and all powerful. But if God is all good, why is there suffering? If there’s suffering, maybe God isn’t all powerful. Or if God is all powerful and there’s suffering, then maybe God isn’t good.

  These things seem inconsistent and that’s the mystery. It doesn’t square. We have to face that.

  The question of 9/11 is right up there with “Why does a little child get cancer and die?” Or the Holocaust. Any answer to these questions feels really unsatisfactory.

  I mean, just think of all the answers we’ve been given over time. “God’s testing us.” “God’s punishing us.” “There’s some hidden meaning that we’re meant to find out.”

  These answers are all pretty monstrous when you think about it. And they’re all about the same topic, which is suffering. Which we simply can’t answer in a satisfying way.

  In the end, I think the believer needs to co
me up with his or her own meaning. It’s especially challenging during an event like 9/11, some terrible tragedy. Or when someone is sick. Or if you get sick. You really have to grapple with this.

  For most people, the answer they come to is that God is with us in the suffering. And this enables them to continue. But some people find it a real challenge to their faith.

  I personally believe that God is with us in our suffering. Also, that Jesus understands our suffering. Because he was—he is—both human and divine. So when we pray to Jesus, we can be sure that he understands all things. Not only because he’s divine, but because he experienced all things as a human being.

  As a Jesuit, I got a sense that there were concentric waves of suffering that came from 9/11.

  First, there was the inner wave: people who lost a loved one, family members, and friends. The most immediate damage. But there was also this secondary wave where you knew people who knew people.

  The second wave wounds were tangential. They still hurt, but they weren’t so immediate.

  Another wave was the people who lived in that neighborhood whose lives and homes were affected. Then New Yorkers as a group. Then Americans. And so on.

  The waves rolled out and, obviously, everyone had different responses.

  But put yourself in the position of someone in that central group, someone who lost a loved one in a very public way. See, it wasn’t just a terrible accident, sudden and awful. No, the added layer of the event being so public makes it even more difficult.

  For those people, the meaning of 9/11 is probably going to be a lot different than it is for the people in all other circles.

  I wouldn’t want to say that people in that inner circle “missed anything.” Meaning, they’ve probably gone through the whole grieving process. But I would say that we as a country sort of skipped some stages. And by doing that, we squandered the unity we’d gained. That, plus our ability to pick a more thoughtful response to what happened.

  Do you remember the very beginning—let’s say the first month or two right after 9/11? The country was united. The whole world was saying, “We’re all New Yorkers. We’re all Americans. We’re all with the United States.”

  There was this tremendous opportunity for us to build on that. But we didn’t. After 9/11, some pretty abhorrent things happened.

  I’m not a politician. But basically, things could have gone two ways. We could have said, “This is awful. A group of insane terrorists did this. We have to take a new look at terrorism.” I mean, in another scenario, you could imagine President Bush saying, “This is a wakeup call for all nations. We’re going to work together through the United Nations to beef up our security, fight this particular brand of terrorism where it started, and make sure this never happens again.”

  But we didn’t do that. Instead, the government said, “We’re going to war in Iraq.” So now, instead of the global war against terror, we got a war in Iraq and Afghanistan. It shifted people’s focus to “We have to kill Saddam Hussein.”

  Obviously, I hold no brief for Saddam Hussein. But this focus seemed off.

  And you know, it’s strange. A lot of people say we’re a Christian nation. Well, Jesus said, “Love your enemies. Pray for those who persecute you.” Jesus forgave his executioners on the cross. That’s a pretty clear example of how forgiveness should work. But a lot of Christians, I think, find that countercultural. That is, they think it would be impractical as a matter of public policy.

  Imagine what would have happened if George Bush had said, “I personally forgive the terrorists.” I think he would have been impeached.

  Again, I’m not a politician. But from what I understand, Saddam Hussein didn’t have a whole lot to do with 9/11. If there was any connection at all, it was with Saudi Arabia.

  Also, you read enough history, you’ll see that a lot of people in the Bush administration were looking for an excuse to finish what George Bush’s father didn’t do. Look what Colin Powell was asked to do in front of the UN.

  So we ended up going to war with Iraq. I strongly disagreed with that. So did the Vatican, by the way. I thought 9/11 was used as an excuse to invade Iraq. And by doing that, I think we lost a lot of that unity, peace, and concord, both globally and within the United States.

  I was very disappointed by that. I thought it was a real tragedy. Still do.

  Also, you could make the case that our invading Iraq completely destabilized the region. The effects of that situation have been lasting.

  As Pope John Paul II said, “War is always a defeat for humanity.”

  For me, it was an example of how we can listen to the Holy Spirit or not. That’s the whole point. We get to choose. It’s up to us. So which will it be?

  The war was something I disagreed with on a large scale. On a smaller scale, I strongly disagreed with how they redeveloped Lower Manhattan.

  It’s a grave. And I thought it should have been left like that, the entire sixteen-acre campus. I wanted to see it left as an open field. But of course, people said, “You can’t possibly do that.”

  The rush to rebuild was so total. It was as if we were saying, “We have to show that what happened here doesn’t affect us.”

  Well, of course it affects you.

  It’s like saying, “Oh, my dad died today. But I’m going to show everybody how tough I am by going right back to work. I’m not even going to the funeral. No. Right back to work the next day.”

  What does that say? How does that show people anything?

  But the speed with which the city, the state, and everything snapped into action was just breathtaking. We’re going to rebuild! I thought, well, that’s typical American arrogance. It’s all about money. That’s all it is.

  The truth is, Ground Zero became a tourist attraction almost immediately. Within, like, a week there were people right outside the perimeter selling postcards with images of the explosion. The worst pictures you can imagine. It was so weird. It was disgusting. I found it offensive to the people who suffered that day

  It’s the monetization of tragedy. It’s this statement that people can make a buck off of anything. What does that say about us as a culture?

  Now, look. A lot of the people selling those postcards were poor people trying to make a living. Most of them didn’t speak English. So you could assume they were recent immigrants who were struggling economically.

  Still. They know what happened there. And you chose to do this?

  But I get it. It’s complicated.

  The way I see it, there were two groups of people who died at Ground Zero. There were the office workers, meaning those who were killed when the planes flew into the buildings and got trapped in the Towers when they collapsed. And there were the rescue workers who gave their lives trying to help the office workers escape. Rescue workers who continue to give their lives to this day, I would add.

  Now, with the first group, that was murder pure and simple. It was an act of war. But the second group, there was a kind of selflessness involved. A sacrifice.

  Members of that second group understood the risk, but they went in anyway. Firefighters, police officers, and rescue workers. They offered their lives. That’s different.

  That’s what I wanted to see celebrated at the site. But it isn’t.

  In the memorial, when you go and look in those fountains, it’s completely despairing. You look into that void. The water just goes into this black hole. How is that in any way a marker for the selfless sacrifice of the rescue workers? That’s what I object to. It’s nihilistic to me. It’s more geared toward the sudden deaths of unwilling participants than the heroic sacrifice of first responders.

  I also have problems with the new building, World Trade Center One. What do I want to say about it? It’s banal. I don’t think it’s very distinguished. I mean, after a year of design contests, that’s what they came up with? That’s it? It’s just a big glass-and-steel office building.

  Yes, I’ve been down to the memorial. But I couldn’t
bring myself to go into the museum, though. I just … I have a hard time going down there.

  I didn’t lose any friends or family at the Trade Center, so I don’t want to put myself on that level. But I don’t want to go into that museum. I just don’t want to.

  Am I dissatisfied with parts of our culture? Sure. As a Christian, you should be dissatisfied.

  We can’t forget how parts of our society were impelled to help. Like I said, they came from all over the country. But then other parts were like, “We’re gonna show them. Let’s get something built down there as soon as possible!” So it’s a mixed bag.

  When I talk about turning within to find the Holy Spirit, letting it guide us … I’m assuming that you’re a believer in Jesus Christ. If you’re not, you could say instead that you’re acting morally, rather than religiously.

  So how do we get people to go there more? To really lean into the Holy Spirit? Basically, the question is: “Why do people choose bad things over good things? And how do we get them to choose good things over bad things?”

  Jesus came and tried to help us figure that out. But a lot of people don’t pay attention to him anymore, even in the church.

  Still, I think there’s a couple ways we can do it.

  First, God says in the Old Testament, “Choose life.”109 And Jesus says, “Love your neighbor as yourself.” And: “Do good to those who persecute you. Pray for the poor or the sick.” So the first thing we can remind people is that these are things God asks us to do.

  Second, we can urge people to act in ways that, ultimately, are for everyone’s good.

  Third, when you look within you, you can feel those two impulses, right? Selfless and selfish. Egocentric and charitable. Loving and not loving. You can feel that within you.

  It’s a kind of battle that goes on. It doesn’t mean that we’re all possessed by the devil. However, it does mean that we all have impulses. And we have choices to make.