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Terrorist Attack Response Help

The unprecedented attack on the United States committed on September 11, 2001 has brought tremendous challenges to our country and society.  Among those challenges are the spiritual and religious challenges before us.  Here is a collection of material that may provide some guidance or help in this most difficult time.

Ireland Reaches Out

Title:  Presbyterians stranded in Ireland were welcomed with warmth, compassion .  Group had been studying Islam in Jordan

19-September-2001        by Evan Silverstein

 LOUISVILLE - A brief layover in Ireland turned into a long journey home for a dozen Presbyterian pastors who were stranded there on Sept. 11, hours after deadly terror attacks in New York City and Washington, DC.

 "It was an odyssey," said the Rev. Teri Thomas, one of the PC(USA)-related ministers grounded in Ireland. "It was terrifying, and it was just really hard not being (in the United States)."  The stranded ministers said the people of Ireland were openly "weeping" for America on one of its darkest days. The warmth of the Irish profoundly moved the American delegation, spiritually and personally.

 "It was overwhelming the compassion and the sympathy the people expressed," said Thomas, the general presbyter of National Capital Presbytery in Washington. "They wanted to do something, too. Their answer was to take care of us. It was unbelievable."

 Together with a few ministers from other U.S. faith groups, the pastors were returning to the United States from Jordan, where they had been since Sept. 2, touring holy sites and learning about Islam. Their pilgrimage was sponsored by The Friends of Jordan, a Presbyterian-founded ecumenical organization that tries to improve relations between Muslims in Jordan and American Christians.

 "It was just prophetic," said the Rev. Jack Wineman, interim pastor of First Presbyterian Church in Arlington, VA. "Our tour guide was telling us before (the terrorist attacks) ever happened that, 'The violent ones are not who we are. That's not the practice of the Muslim faith. That's not following the Koran. That's extremism.'"

 After poking around Biblical sites and "bonding" with their Muslim hosts, the ecumenical group departed Amman, Jordan, early on Sept 11- just hours before terrorists crashed commercial jets into the World Trade Center's signature twin towers and the Pentagon.  By the time the pastors' Royal Jordanian airliner landed in Shannon six hours later, to refuel, both Trade Center towers had collapsed, the Pentagon was aflame, and a stunned world watched in horror. With air traffic grounded in the United States and Canada, the one-hour layover in Shannon lasted up to five days for some, and changed the lives of each group member forever.

 "We had this terrific 'high', if you will, as we left and said goodbye to all of these people (in Jordan)," Wineman said of the group, which was unaware of the terror strikes until deplaning in Ireland. "And then the same day to have this happen, five, six hours later, we were just devastated."

 The terrorist attacks hit close to home for the Rev. J. Robin Bromhead, pastor of Centreville Presbyterian Church in Centreville, Va. He discovered after landing in Ireland that a member of his church, and a neighbor, was missing following the strike on the Pentagon.   "It was just a total shock and disbelief," he said. "It was almost as if I could hear my thoughts saying, 'This can't be right. There's a mistake here.'"  Missing in the Pentagon debris was Canfield "Bud" Boone, 53, who was recently promoted to a full colonel in the Army, and worked in personnel. He and his wife, Linda, had been members of the Centreville church for at least six years. The church is about a mile from the Pentagon. The Boones had three children together: Chris, 23, Andy, 21, and Jason, 18.

 On Friday, Bromhead phoned Linda Boone from Ireland to console her, a difficult task under unreal circumstances that made Bromhead "break down" from emotion after the call.  "I had much rather been there in person and talking with her, rather than trying to minister over the phone," Bromhead said from Virginia on Monday, as he prepared to inform Linda Boone that her husband's remains had been found. "(I wanted to be there) just to see what her facial expression was, in terms of what were some of the most difficult dimensions of this for her.  I think not knowing the exact outcome at that point was something that was very, very difficult for her."

 Other Presbyterian pastors traveling with the group were: the Rev. Lynne Faris, associate pastor for outreach at National Presbyterian Church in Washington, DC, and the the Rev. Graham F. Bardsley, pastor of Warner Memorial Presbyterian Church in Kensington, MD. Also present was the Rev. Fuad Khouri, pastor of the Arabic Church of the Redeemer in Washington, DC, an international immigrant group that has formal relations with National Capital Presbytery.

 Presbyterian pastors from New York and North Carolina also joined the group, as did Arthur Murphy, a National Capital Presbytery staff member. A few United Church of Christ ministers and Catholic priests also were part of the group.  "There was enormous frustration, in the sense that we wanted to be with our families and we wanted to be with our congregations that were hurting," said Bardsley, who along with Khouri founded The Friends of Jordan. "It was just a feeling of total helplessness."  Tears and shock gave way, however, to comforting and support from the group's new hosts - the people of Shannon.

 "I mean the people in Ireland were absolutely unbelievable," said Wineman, who is married to Thomas, the general presbyter of National Capital.  "They came up to us saying, 'Do you have a place to stay? Can we feed you?  What can we do for you? This is awful. Words can't describe how bad we feel.'"  Wineman said waitresses at restaurants would "weep for us," and the Irish government declared Friday, Sept. 14, a national day of mourning.  "Everything was shut down in Ireland," he said. "You couldn't get anything in Ireland on Friday - everything closed. I'm not talking three minutes.  They did the three-minute thing. But they closed for the whole day."

 The group attended a packed prayer service and memorial at a local Catholic church in Shannon, where members built a shrine in front of the altar, complete with the World Trade Center, a clock stopped at the time of the first attack, and candles everywhere.  "We sang, we prayed, we had acknowledgements of sympathy and sorrow, and that sort of thing," Wineman said. "And then we walked out through this crowd of people. It was spontaneous, everybody just wept."  The service touched Thomas like no service ever had before.  "It was the most powerful worship experience I've ever had in my life," Thomas said. "It was so moving, and it was the people. It was their compassion and their tears, and a feeling that while we were so far away from home and the people we loved and cared for, we were surrounded there by people who didn't know us, but loved and cared for us."   Wineman said worshippers approached the group later in the church parking lot with hugs, tears, condolences and the "most wrenching, most powerful expression of solidarity and of sympathy and of real humanity."

 The trip home, which for some in the group started shortly after midnight on Sunday, was grueling. It took Wineman, Thomas, Bromhead and others nearly 30 hours to make their way from Shannon to Washington - including a 10-hour drive from Toronto, Canada.  "That was hard," Thomas said of the return trip. "I paid a lot of attention to the people getting on the plane. Usually I start reading my book and ignore it, but this time you looked at people. It's terrible, the suspicion it raises in your mind. But it's also the only plane I've been on where they applauded when we took off and they applauded when we landed."