“I woke up this morning to an empty sky.” (Bruce Springsteen, “Empty Sky,” The RisingAs we neared the ninth anniversary of 9/11 this week, I pulled out Bruce Springsteen’s tribute album to 9/11, The Rising. In “Empty Sky,” he perfectly captured the sense of direction the twin towers gave us here in Northern New Jersey and New York. On a clear day, you could see the towers from twenty miles or so away, and for those living in the metropolitan area the towers marked our proximity to home. Whether we were coming up the Turnpike from a short trip to the Shore, or returning from spending the holidays in Illinois, the first sight of the towers meant we were almost home. Still, to this day, I look for those towers when I see the New York skyline, but the sky is still empty where they used to be, and we all know how that happened.)
We have picture of my Mom, Marcia, Alyssa, and me sitting at a window inside the South Tower observation deck on the 107th floor, looking back waving. Behind us through the window the North Tower is nearly fully in view. Only the top few floors are not visible. The picture is on a collage of photos that we put together for my Mom’s funeral in 2000. She died on September 29 that year a few days after her accident on September 26. Then September 11 came the next year, and five years later Marcia’s mother died on September 26. My birthday is also in September, and it has always been my favorite month because the days are warm, the nights are cool, and the coffee tastes just a little better in the morning when there is a chill in the air. But 9/11 and deaths of our loved ones have made September sorrowful for me in the midst of all that beauty, the same way I feel about Celtic music. No other music freely moves between joy and sorrow so easily, and no other month except September can do that either.
My friend Jim came to visit several years ago and we drove down to the Towers thinking we would share the gospel with a few people at the WTC Plaza one evening. We had both been affected by the Brownsville Revival, and sometimes Jim would come down and we’d go into New York. This time, he brought his guitar, but when we got to the Towers hardly any people were there, I think because it was a holiday Monday evening. We decided to sit down at one of the fountains and sing the gospel song, “No Not One.” Not long after we started the third verse, a group of about twenty young people appeared out of nowhere and surrounded us, clapping along as we sang. At first it was unsettling, but it soon became evident we were not in any harm. The group cheered when we finished, and we then found out they were on a missions trip to New York City from Pennsylvania. They had just arrived, and the first people they found were two guys singing:
“Jesus knows all about our troubles, He will guide till the day is through, there’s not a friend like the lowly Jesus, no not one, no not one.”I think that us being there helped them not be afraid of the city.
When I’m missing those towers, I think about that night sometimes and feel better. But the sky is still empty, and we are no longer as free and innocent as we were, nine years later.