How Shall We Sing God's Song in a Strange Land?

In Brooklyn, 2½ miles from what we would soon call Ground Zero, I looked at the glorious blue sky outside my apartment window that morning and started a list:

1 - call mom
2 - buy cat food
3 - order anthem / note to treasurer

Before I finished, the world changed.

On the one TV channel that didn't immediately turn to static, the towers collapsed over and over. On the radio, the NPR office was being evacuated. Wasn't the Emergency Broadcast System supposed to beep and give instructions of what to do in case of ...? Certainly this was an emergency.

Sirens! Sirens from all directions at once! My phone isn't working!

The Pentagon? Can they do that?

"This is real! This is real!" I thought. Bits of comprehension flashed, jagged, surreal.

My upstairs neighbor pounded on my door. For years, we had nodded, passing in the hallway. Now, we held each other tight, speechless.

By the time I ventured outside, the sky over my Brooklyn neighborhood was filled with smoke and ash. Charred pieces of spread sheets dangled from the trees. "Strange fruit ...."

One block away, the café-lined street was full of those who had trudged over the Brooklyn Bridge, wiping away soot and tears. The local hospital didn't need any more blood donors. No one knew how else to help.

I met friends at a popular diner. In the dazed crowd, everyone whispered or sat staring. The towers had already transcended their reputation as eyesores and attained the status of cherished totems, transformed by martyrdom into skyscraper saints.

Occasionally, someone sobbed and the diner would hush. People ordered, but didn't eat. Were the bridges and tunnels still open? All flights were canceled, but what about the trains and buses? "How trapped are we?"

At our table, plans solidified for a community gathering that night at the church. The pastor was already printing up fliers.

In the chaos, it would have been easy to miss the moment when little Moira pushed away her baby bottle and pointed to her mother's water glass. "You want to drink from a glass like a big girl?" Moira nodded emphatically, and we watched, mesmerized, as she sipped from a real glass. Then, with unbridled glee, she threw her arms over her head and laughed, water dribbling down the front of her smock. This, too, happened on that day.

At dusk, people flocked into the sanctuary – many who hadn't stepped into a church in years. What music is appropriate after a terrorist attack? As the church filled, I played contemplative music by Bach, Mendelssohn, Schumann. The pastor led us in prayer, then offered a time for sharing. Many who spoke had seen people leap from the towers. By candlelight, we listened and wept. We sang "O God, Our Help in Ages Past" and John Lennon's "Imagine."

We stumbled through the next few weeks, trembling and disoriented, adjusting to the strange smell in the air, disrupted routines, the mutilated skyline. Some of us prayed and marched in interfaith displays of unity – Christians, Jews, Muslims and Humanists together.

Fall music themes are usually harvest and thanksgiving. Now, I sought songs of lamentation, comfort, and healing. As it turns out, the choir's favorite anthem that hard season was Lanny Wolfe's "In Everything." It reminded us that God is with us, in good times and in bad. A song of gratitude, it was the one that resonated most deeply.

Following the attacks, we tried, but failed, to stop our national descent into warring madness. With minimal fuss, most of us acquiesced to arbitrary invasions of privacy ("Blest Be the Background Check that Binds") and to new policies based on fear, suspicion, scapegoating, revenge ("Leaning on the Everlasting Arms, safe and secure from all alarms ... but, for good luck, we'll reinforce our trust in God with bag checks, surveillance cameras, invasive pat-downs, pilotless Predator drones...").

Later came the distraction of new toys – IPads, IPods, IPhones, I-everything. Aching for connection, we learned to text and tweet.

How shall we sing God's song in this strange land? These days, walking down the street, I hum "I Want Jesus to Walk with Me" and "Keep Your Eyes on the Prize, Hold On!" or sometimes the Taize chant "Give Peace to Every Heart."

New hymns have been written, with lyrics that promote peace, justice, and an appreciation of faith diversity. Some specifically reference 9-11, including "O God, Our Hearts Were Shattered," written by Carolyn Winfrey Gillette for the tenth anniversary, and "When Sudden Terror Tears Apart the World We Thought Was Ours" by Rev. Carl P. Daw, Jr. (These and other 9-11 related hymns can be found on various internet sites.)

I wish someone would write a hymn based on the prayer of Father Mychal Judge, who was the beloved and unconventional chaplain to the NYC Fire Department. Sometimes called "the Saint of 9-11," he was killed by falling debris in the lobby of Tower One and became "victim #0001" – officially the first casualty of the attacks. Because of his death, the world came to know, not only of his remarkable life, but also of his daily prayer:

Lord, take me where you want me to go,
Let me meet who you want me to meet,
Tell me to say what you want me to say,
And keep me out of your way.

This year on 9-11, at my church in Brooklyn, we will sing some new songs. We will also sing our favorite anthem from ten years ago, the one advocating gratitude in good times and in bad. As we pray and sing together, we will help each other remember that the world is still a wondrous one and that nothing, not the terrorist attack or our tragically misguided response to it, can separate us from God's love.