Chaos and Connection

I worked in the HR department of our local public utility (electric/gas/water); we were all working on that beautiful morning that felt like fall was already here when a colleague told us that he heard a plane had hit the World Trade Center. We all said how awful and kept on working. When he told us the second plane had hit, we knew now that the world had changed forever. By the time the buildings had fallen, all of us had come out of our offices and spontaneously gathered in our large open area to form a circle, hold hands and pray. The rest of the day we were just numb. Very little work got done, but we knew that we were together and that was what kept us going.

The next night, my church had a worship service planned (as usual).

Generally, this service was only attended by about 15 or so people, and held in a small chapel. On September 12, 2001, that building was packed to standing room only.

At my office and at church, from that terrible chaos came a pull to community--to see people and be together.

That desire for community gave us the resilience to recover and strengthened us for the days ahead.