9/11 in Paris

Most of you know that Mr Z and I lived in Paris, France for four years.  We were there on 9/11 and we attended church that first Sunday after the attacks on America.  I wrote this back then and have posted it here before but especially wanted to post it today, Saturday in Los Angeles, 10 years later.

PARIS CHURCH SERVICE AFTER THE U.S. ATTACK 9/11......

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 here, 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 had heard all kinds of things those days and nobody knew what might happen next.

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.  What was going on?

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? 

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 knew who else was there?

The news had everyone in Paris worried and on alert, so 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 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, you'd better bring it.” 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.  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 with all those people.

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.   (end)

God Bless America...God Bless those foreigners who stood up with us at that Church service at the American Cathedral on Avenue George V in the 8th Arrondissement.  

Mayor Bloomberg might not be allowing clergy to be represented at the New York City Memorial today in NY, but isn't it wonderful that this 10th year anniversary is on a SUNDAY and that churches across this country will be remembering it with all the faith this country still has to enjoy?

"Why are you downcast, O my soul?  Why so disturbed within me?  Put your hope in God, for I will yet praise Him, my Savior and my God." Psalms 42: 11

Please give a thought to those who jumped from the Towers.......I rarely think of 9/11 without thinking of them.  And please remember the families that were devastated forever. God Bless America and please keep her safe today and always.  Amen.  
And please come back tomorrow for my 9/11 Sunday Faith Blog.

Z