Terror, Anxiety and Awe Are on the Loose at Ground Zero

Crossing the police barricade at Canal Street and walking past the courthouses and City Hall toward ground zero, you enter an uncanny world that is both completely familiar and totally strange. Though street signs and landmarks remain unchanged, axes of orientation no longer line up as they once did. It is not just the absence of people and traffic or the haunting stillness; something else, something palpable yet far more difficult to articulate, is loose on the streets.

I crossed that barrier with my 29-year-old son, Aaron, who had been in the World Financial Center at the time of the attack. He was not injured but while escaping had images seared in his mind that will change him forever. I felt it was important for him to return to the scene of terror and knew he should not go alone the first time.

As we turned the corner on Broadway at St. Paul’s Chapel, we caught our first glimpse of the American Express building through the lingering smoke. We both froze. Standing but a stone’s throw away, the floors where Aaron had been working looked like they had suffered repeated mortar attacks. Between us and the financial center, the twin towers of the World Trade Center once stood. Now their absence had become an overwhelming presence.

A few blocks farther on, there was an opening through which we could see the true scope of the devastation. With dusk falling, bright lights illuminated a scene that was both profoundly unsettling and disturbingly sublime, like an otherworldly sculpture by some unknown artist. A small crowd had gathered and was gazing at the ruins in stunned silence.

We have repeatedly heard that TV cannot do justice to the scene, and that is right. It is not merely that our screens are too small and camera angles too limited; rather, the reality confronting us is not only visual but, more important, visceral. There is only one word I know to describe the response to what we saw: awe.

A strange religious atmosphere pervades ground zero. There has been much talk about the role of religion in this conflict but very little understanding of what religion--either our own or the religions of others--involves. There are, of course, many gods and many faces of gods believed to be one. While religion often gives people a sense of meaning and purpose in times of personal and social crisis, its symbols, stories and rituals also carry people to the edge of life where unmasterable power always threatens to erupt.

Religion is associated as much with terror and anxiety as with love and peace. For a few brief moments on Sept. 11, the veneer of security was torn to reveal a primordial vulnerability that neither defense departments nor advanced technologies can overcome.

The encounter with this awesome power is a religious experience that leaves nothing unchanged.

I don’t know how long Aaron and I lingered; in this realm, time stands still. Eventually, we roamed up Broadway past Trinity Church, where the graveyard is more haunting than ever, to the Wall Street subway station. Descending underground, awe gave way to anxiety.

For over a century, philosophers have been telling us that anxiety is more distressing than fear. In contrast to fear, whose object is specific and thus manageable, anxiety is provoked by something so indeterminate that it cannot be precisely defined or located. Anxiety is a response to what is there but not there, everywhere but nowhere--precisely like the webs and networks of terror that now hold us in their grip. Individually and collectively, we sense the danger of things slipping out of control and are not sure how or where to respond.

Waiting for the train in silence, anxiety settled as thick as the dust enveloping us. The anxiety circulating above and below ground in New York brings into focus an unease that has been growing as we find ourselves increasingly entangled in complex technological and financial networks that make global terrorism possible. With information and money racing around the world at the speed of light, we are no longer sure who--if anyone--is in control.

The terrorists’ networks shadow and mime the structure and operation of the Web as well as global communications and financial systems. They have been more effective in turning our technologies against us than we have been in using ours against them. The boundary between us and them, inside and outside, for and against, is neither fixed nor secure but remains fluid, mobile and shifty.

Our military and economic superiority also renders us vulnerable. Our strength has become our weakness. Can we now humbly accept our vulnerability by opening ourselves to help from others--both within and beyond the borders that we now know are insecure--without whom we cannot survive? If so, our weakness might become our strength.

As we ascended from the subway to the growing darkness of uptown, I realized that our pilgrimage had not erased Aaron’s scars; nothing ever will. In this difficult time, we must not seek premature closure but should linger with the wound to learn the profound lessons it harbors.