Spiritual Responses

Two houses of worship in the Episcopal Diocese of New York stood among the ashes of the World Trade Center buildings, and diocesan clergy, parishioners and institutions were already located in the immediate area and ready to assist from the beginning. With so many resources available to respond to the destruction at the WTC site, the Episcopal Diocese of New York and the National Episcopal Church seemed called to become leaders in the rescue and cleanup efforts that followed one of the most devastating events in U.S. history.

Now, a media collection is available, Spiritual Responses to 9/11, that details the involvement of the Church in the recovery efforts through personal interviews and reflects on the impact the attack and the grueling aftermath had on everyone involved. Five institutions — Church Pension Group, Church Publishing, Episcopal Diocese of New York, The New-York Historical Society and Trinity Television and New Media — collaborated to present Spiritual Responses, which includes a book, a DVD/video and a Web site.

“The Episcopal Church became a vehicle for a massive response,” said Mary Sudman Donovan, coauthor of the book. Donovan said that soon after September 11, she visited the recovery efforts “and was so impressed with what’s happening.” She asked herself, “Why don’t we hear about the Episcopal Church” and what it is doing?

With a similar reaction, Bishop Mark Sisk decided to initiate Spiritual Responses. He “wanted to find a way to memorialize what happened and provide spiritual sustenance to people,” said R. William Franklin, whom the bishop brought to the Diocese as Scholar-in-Residence to spearhead the project.

An Oral History
Franklin and Donovan began work on the book, Will the Dust Praise You? Spiritual Responses to 9/11, a collection of interviews with people involved in the events of September 11 or in the recovery efforts following. “We wanted to tell the story of what happened through the voices of the people and wanted to record their own spiritual responses,” Franklin said.

Donovan, who had previously written oral histories and has a doctorate from Columbia University, immediately began interviewing Trinity employees who had been in the immediate area during the attacks. She then began recording conversations with people she knew from her tours of the recovery sites: the Rev. Lyndon Harris, who was working at St. Paul’s Chapel and Debra Wagner and the Rev. Canon Peter Larom from Seamen’s Church Institute, a diocesan organization greatly involved in the recovery work. After talking to those she knew, Donovan then asked those people for names of others, and continued doing that until she had interviewed many people involved.

The interviewees weren’t limited to people from the New York area or the Episcopal Church. “We wanted to have people from every corner of society in the book,” Franklin said, “so that as much as possible we could have a wide variety of people and institutions.” The book features a varied cast of people involved in some way in the event, “but for every person we interviewed, we know probably five other names we should have interviewed too,” Donovan said. The authors also had a vast library of interviews videotaped by Trinity Television, originally for archival purposes and then included in several memorial videos.

After collecting all of the interviews, the authors selected two paragraphs from each one that detailed one revealing moment in the experience of that person. The interviewees were asked where they were on September 11, what were their roles in the recovery efforts, why they got involved and what effects their experiences had on their spiritual lives. “We got some really powerful, powerful statements,” Donovan said. The authors didn’t know what the chapters of the book would be, but the strong patterns that emerged from the interviews dictated the book’s organization. The chapters of the book include “The First Week,” “St. Paul’s Chapel” and “The Future.”

Franklin emphasized that Will the Dust Praise You? is not a political book. Instead, “it provides a space and resources for discussion, and the Church is the place where people can discuss freely,” he said.

The title of the book, suggested by the Rev. Dr. Christopher King, Diocesan Youth Coordinator, is taken from Psalm 30 and fits the book’s contents well because, as Franklin said, “Dust is the Symbol of 9/11.” He also explained that the title refers to the Resurrection, as Jesus was turned to dust and then came alive again.

Reflections on Film
Two days after September 11, the staff of Trinity Television, a program of Trinity Church, Wall Street, in Manhattan, had begun documenting the recovery efforts going on in the church’s literal backyard. The footage was used to produce five videos relating to Ground Zero. It soon became clear that a video should also be part of the Spiritual Responses project. For this new video, the Trinity team decided to focus on the reflections of people involved now that some time had passed, a different theme from the other videos that focused more on the concrete issues of what happened and how everyone responded.
This time, “We had the ability to go back to people to interview them and see what has happened to them since,” explained Bert Medley, Executive Producer of the Spiritual Responses video, titled Revelations at Ground Zero. “We learned what transitions people went through.” The video features a cross-section of people tied to 9/11, members and clergy from Trinity, New Yorkers who volunteered, people from outside the area that helped out and family members of victims. It explains “how we all come to grips in times of crisis,” Medley said.

The video presents a “much broader sweep” than other documentation because it focuses on “the thoughts and reflections of individuals and leaders of institutions” and features “theological stories and issues,” Medley said. “Everyone can find value in it — people in colleges, universities, parishes.

“I’m a storyteller,” he continued. “My charge was to tell stories. By having people tell their stories, we can find things that resonate in our own lives.”

Spiritual Responses also features a Web site by the Church Pension Group, www.spiritualresponsesto911.org that will feature study guides to accompany the book and video.

The book and DVD/video can be purchased on the following Web sites: www.spiritualresponsesto911.org or www.trinitywallstreet.org. The book, Will the Dust Praise You? Spiritual Responses to 9/11, costs $21.95. The DVD/video, Revelations from Ground Zero, Spiritual Responses to 9/11, costs $29.95. The book and DVD/video set costs $45.

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