THE 9/11 ATTACKS AND PARIS (a little weekend reading break from politics as usual)

When we arrived, every seat in every pew was taken, and only a small, narrow pew against the back wall had two empty seats. We crowded into them, shoulder to shoulder with strangers. We’d only been twice to the Sunday morning service, and both times it had been only a bit more than half full. Today was different. Today was the first Sunday after the attack on the United States.

We’d hesitated about going. Would it be safe? Wouldn’t this be the perfect target for terrorists here in Paris who could be sure it would be full of Americans? Or maybe it would be empty because others, too, were fearful.

We decided to go. The skies were threatening rain but the church was flooded with people.

There was no mention of the attack in the standard hand-out we were given when we walked in. There was the normal agenda, starting with the organ voluntary, the page number for the hymns, the readings from the Bible, communion was to be held today, and there was to be a baptism. A baptism? As if things were normal? Where was mention of the attack? We came to be here with other Americans, to share in the sadness, to pay our respects to our dead.

The bulletin also said that, at the end of the service, we would be singing “America the Beautiful”. They’d not ignored the attack after all. I looked forward to singing that with all these people today, even if we did have to wait through what I thought would be the interminable time it would take to give communion to so many people. And a baptism?

When the sermon started, the pastor mentioned the baptism right off. He seemed to hold my opinion about it being unusual to have a baptism today of all days. But, he also held the same opinion I’d finally arrived at five minutes before….what better message for today of all days? This little child, Chloe, of British and French parents, was being baptized today. The world hadn’t stopped for her, even if it had most surely changed for all of us.

Being here, being cramped, as the folding chairs filled the space between the last pew and us, sitting ramrod straight on that very shallow seat, becoming too warm and noticing someone had shut the glass doors to the foyer, knowing we’d have to wait at least a half hour just for communion to be given, all this was just about the very least we could do to honor Americans, but I was really uncomfortable. Uncomfortable, I thought? How dare you? How uncomfortable were those people in the twin towers and the Pentagon on Tuesday? I was uncomfortable?

Two people were standing up, squeezed between the folding chairs and us. “Vas-y”, the husband said to his wife, pointing over to some folding chairs in the far corner. “Go over there”, in French. Then, during the quiet of communion, I asked the young woman next to me if she was American or French. “Spanish,” she said. “Do you come here often?” I asked her. “No, I just had to come today. I had to do something, even if it was just this. Today, we are all American.” Did I dare thank her? Should I be so presumptuous to speak for all Americans? I couldn’t help it. I did. And she patted my shoulder.

Le Monde, one of the two largest French newspapers, had printed those very words on Wednesday “WE ARE ALL AMERICAN”, right across the front page. Many European papers shouted that in huge print. Today at church I found out it wasn’t just lip service at all. French were here, Spanish were here, who knows who else was there?

My husband and I had considered not coming because, frankly, we were a bit worried about who else just might be there with us, hidden in the congregation. “They’ll check my purse today going in,” I told my husband, “I’ll have to really clean it before we go!” “That’s a good idea anyway!” he teased, he who calls my handbag “the black hole.” “Maybe I won’t take my purse today.” “But, they may check ID’s,” he reminded me. I was relieved to hear the reason he thought we might need ID’s on us. I was afraid to voice mine. But my reason wasn’t far from my mind, particularly when, twenty minutes into the service, a young man walked in and squeezed past me. He was dark haired and rather dark skinned, and carrying a raincoat. In his hand, hiding under the raincoat draped over his left arm, was a plastic bag with something inside it. He used the moment while he passed me to arrange it more comfortably and farther under his coat.
There I was in this overly crowded church, the front door blocked by at least twenty people standing because there were no more seats and this guy was hiding something under his arm.

*** I'll be posting the rest of this in a day or two. Come back with me to Paris on that fateful week and hear how this ended!