National tragedies sear themselves into our memories.
Everyone in my parents’ generation can remember where they were when they heard the news that JFK was assassinated. I can still perfectly envision the 4th grade classroom I was sitting in when my classmates and I watched the Challenger explode.
And I’ll never forget that Tuesday morning, twenty-five years ago.
It was the beginning of my third year of graduate school. I was in my room studying when my roommate shouted from the living room, “You’ve got to see this on TV!” Like millions of Americans, I watched dumbfounded as smoke billowed from the first tower. Then the unthinkable. Another flash. An explosion. A fiery cloud. And towers crumbling as if made of flimsy foil. Filled with thousands of people.
Like every other school across the country, the University of Notre Dame immediately cancelled all classes. We were all terrified. What was happening? What to do? We did the only thing thinkable on a campus of faith: we prayed. That afternoon we gathered on the main quad in the middle of campus. The university president, a Holy Cross priest, celebrated Mass. Everyone went: Catholics and non-Catholics, believers and non-believers. Praying together, exchanging handshakes and hugs in the sign of peace, was the only thing that made sense.
A year and a half later, I visited New York with the rest of my peace studies graduate cohort. We did the serious things, like the UN, and the fun things, like a Yankees game. We also went to Ground Zero.
By then, the rubble had been removed. What remained was an enormous hole, an open wound in the heart of the city. There also remained the wooden construction walls, plastered with notices of people still looking for the loved ones who never came home.
I wept uncontrollably.
In that place, I felt a presence. The pain, suffering, and fear were visceral. I’ve felt that presence only one other time, when visiting the memorial of genocide victims in Rwanda. Those two experiences are enough for me to know that there are—in this cosmos and in this world—forces that can only be described as “darkness” and “evil” (Eph. 6:12).
What are we to do in the face of such overwhelming and obvious dark power?
We don’t look away. We don’t pretend it isn’t there. We don’t bury our heads in the sand. We don’t flinch in the face of our collective inhumanity.
Instead, we insist—stubbornly, incessantly, willfully—that there is a better way. A more excellent way. A way that can drive out the darkness. A way that can dispel the hate.
We proclaim the Way. And together, we make a way.
*****
I love that 9/11 has become a National Day of Service. That is a perfect response to what happened 25 years ago.
Let me suggest one other response, inspired by the very people who most closely witnessed the darkness. I learned about it by watching the incredibly powerful documentary film 9/11: Reclaiming Ground Zero, directed by my friend Josh Sabey. I can’t recommend the film highly enough.
Shortly after 9/11, New Yorkers began discussing what to do at the World Trade Center site. Some people, including many family members of those who died inside the buildings and whose remains were never recovered, were adamant that Ground Zero should remain empty, as any kind of rebuilding would occur literally on top of their loved ones’ ashes. Others said that the two towers should be built back exactly as they were before, maybe even bigger, as a show of defiance toward the terrorists. Still others wondered if the site would be best used for some kind of civic purpose, whether it be low-income housing, a museum, or even a stadium. A series of filled-to-capacity meetings held to discuss the question produced a predictable dynamic: the angriest people spoke loudest and longest, the crowd got whipped up, public officials sat stony-faced at the front, and everyone left the room angrier and more frustrated than when they entered.
A coalition of community leaders decided to try something different. They partnered with an organization called AmericaSpeaks, which had recently pioneered a technique using technology and facilitated conversations among large groups of people to create “a twenty-first-century town hall.” In July 2002, nearly 5000 New Yorkers, carefully selected to represent the city’s income, racial, and geographic diversity, converged on a conference center for a day of deliberations called “Listening to the City.”
Participants sat at round tables, where they were presented with a series of six preselected options for the Ground Zero site. At hundreds of tables, ordinary New Yorkers talked about their experiences, their hopes, their fears, and what they wanted to see in the rebuilding process. They listened earnestly to one another. As the conversations continued, they realized that across all their differences they shared remarkably similar values. They all thought the preapproved plans were unimaginative and dull. They wanted something better—for themselves, their city, their fallen loved ones.
Prior to the gathering, skeptics doubted that anything good could possibly emerge from putting 5000 New Yorkers in a room. Even the event organizers admitted to being nervous. The New York Daily News columnist Peter Hamill captured both the anxiety and the surprise of what happened:
We came to the vast hangar at the Javits Center expecting the worst. Put 5,000 New Yorkers in a room, charge them with planning a hunk of the New York future, and the result would be a lunatic asylum. . . . None of that happened. . . . At each table they debated in a sober, thoughtful civil way. They voted, offered comments, and moved on to the next item on the agenda. . . . Because the process was an exercise in democracy, not demagoguery, no bellowing idiots grabbed microphones to perform for the cameras. . . . In this room, “I” had given way to “we.” Yes, the assembly was boring to look at, too serious, too grave, too well-mannered for standard TV presentation. And it was absolutely thrilling. . . . We have a word for what they were doing. The word is democracy.
Carolyn Lukensmeyer, president of AmericaSpeaks, put it more succinctly: “Invite five thousand New Yorkers to a meeting, what would you expect? Food fights? Maybe even a fist fight? But what happened was democracy.”
As exhilarating as the experience was to have their voices heard in the moment, most participants said they had little faith that public officials and real estate developers would really listen to them. To their surprise, those tasked with supervising the redevelopment did, in fact, “listen to the city.” They scrapped their plans, went back to the drawing board, and solicited new proposals from architects that foregrounded the public’s clear sentiments.
The rebuilt World Trade Center—with its commercial space, transportation hub, museum, and memorial—is not just the result of stunning architectural vision. It is a testament to the power of people with vastly different backgrounds, experiences, and interests listening to one another. By listening to understand more than to win, they came up with something far greater than what any individual or small group could have envisioned on their own.
New Yorkers responded to evil and built back their city by learning how to listen.
*****
This 9/11, my prayer is that each of us will seek a better way through the various conflicts in our lives. There are many steps on the way, but one of the first steps on the journey is improving how we listen to one another.
I pray that each of us—beginning with me—can repair the frayed fabric of our society, relationship by relationship, by approaching one another with the ears of a peacemaker.
You don’t need to heal a city. You don’t need to vanquish terrorism. Start where you are. Start close in. Think of someone close to you, someone whom you have a hard time hearing. Choose to listen. Not to argue, not to win. Just to listen. Then see what happens.
If New Yorkers can do it, maybe you can too.
*****
For all you friends on the East coast—or looking for an excuse to travel there—it’s not too late to register for “Peacemakers Needed,” a half-day gathering on September 21 in Washington, DC. Co-sponsored by Waymakers, the Heravi Peace Institute at Utah State University, and the Washington, DC, Temple Visitors’ Center, we’ll spend a half day learning how to more effectively transform interpersonal, religious, and political conflicts in our lives. We’d love to see you there!