BY POPULAR DEMAND!! (of Elmer's Bro, that is!!)

SO......here's the sequel to my story of Church in Paris that first Sunday after 9/11... for those of you who've been biting your fingernails wondering "WHAT HAPPENED??"! (quit laughing, everyone....humor this budding author!)

please read the start of it below if you haven't been following!! (it'll make MUCH more sense that way!) When we left off....................I'd seen a man in that crowded church HIDE something under his arm... Was it ...a BOMB??????.............wouldn't YOU have worried?

Were they checking the men outside, too, on their way in? Yes, they’d checked my purse, but barely, but they hadn’t checked my husband’s pockets or under his jacket. There had been only two policemen strolling outside, and only one person inside checking handbags. Had they checked under that man’s raincoat?

It was getting close to communion time and my husband, who’d given his seat next to me to a very old woman with a cane, was one of those blocking the exit! I stood up, walked over to him and whispered “let’s go” and kept walking towards the door. Should I say something about that man with the coat and the bag? Should I create a commotion? Surely, it was nothing. This was church, a place of worship. Wasn’t this the one place I should trust? Wasn’t that the message I should have received from church over the last years, that most of us are good, to trust our fellow man? Maybe the man had a friend there and was giving him a new book, that thing under his arm? But, what if I was wrong? Would I be responsible if that wasn’t a book? Would I be able to live with myself, if I lived? How could I sit there? Was this just my normal, paranoid self overreacting because of the vulnerability we’ve all begun to feel since Tuesday?

I was sad to leave as I walked out early with my husband. I wanted to sing that last song “O beautiful for spacious skies”, but felt concerned. And responsible. Happily, and reassuringly, the man who’d checked my bag was still there at the front door. “There’s a man inside with a bag with something in it underneath his raincoat, are you checking the men’s things, too?” “Yes,” he smiled. I couldn’t help thinking that he thought I was a nut case. But it didn’t matter. I was relieved. We went back in. I’d decided by then that, even if he hadn’t really checked, I had to go back in. I had to sing the song.

Miraculously, in that crowd, my one space on the bench was still there. My husband and the others continued to block the exit, but the service would soon be over. Communion was finishing. And then the singing started. We all stood up. Around me, voices cracked as they sang the words and people dug for Kleenex in their purses or pockets. The old lady who’d sat next to me suddenly started crying so hard her shoulders shook and I put my arm around this stranger and left it there till the singing was over. At one point, I, too, was almost overcome…”America, America, God shed his grace on thee, and crown thy good with brotherhood, from sea to shining sea.” Judging from the strength of those voices, it seemed that everyone had looked forward to singing that hymn. The church shook with the sound of the organ and all of our voices lifted to the highest rafters from which banners from each of the different United States hung down. The recessional of choristers and priests and bishops and choir boys passed me, the Spanish girl, the sobbing elderly lady, and I walked out the front door. We’d made it. The man really did have a book under his jacket for a friend. I really did have to learn to trust again. And I got to sing the song with hundreds of Americans, French, Spanish, British, Germans and who knows who else? It didn’t matter, really. We were suddenly all Americans.


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