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Perspectives from Ground Zero: (CLICK YOUR BROWSERS "BACK" BUTTON WHEN FINISHED)
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There are no atheists in foxholes and there are certainly no atheists at Ground Zero. The immense tragedy has stuck the very soul of America, let alone New York. It has been the cause for many New Yorkers a spiritual awakening. You hear the question quite often, "Is this the beginning of the end times?" There is a deep and resonant spiritual chord to all of this. What has been dubbed, "The Pile," is in affect the funeral pyre of thousands. To walk and work at Ground Zero is to stand on holy ground. It is a sacred thing this huge pile of rubble and ruin, a cathedral to those who unknowingly and so needlessly gave their lives. A police officer stood a Ground Zero - he had a moment, so I asked him how it was going. He looked at me with agonized eyes and told me that his job was to recognize body parts and remove them. "When I think that I can no longer stand it," he said, "I tell myself that one day it will be over and then I can crash." Then he added, "Today when I thought I had had it, there opened before us as the crane lifted off tons of debris a cavernous space that had not collapsed, and there to the right the beams had fallen forming a cross. It was," he said, "An omen from God!" Cathedrals are not necessarily great and lofty spires, to sit empty and silent until the day of worship - cathedrals, real cathedrals are built in the hearts of men and women, and it is there that real worship, true worship takes place. Every day, sometimes many times, the policemen, the firemen, the workers pause - a man of the cloth quickly comes, a short prayer, a moment of silence and then the living snap to attention and salute the fallen comrade - yes, indeed, a cathedral need not be one of stone and colored glass, it can be the jagged, torn and tormented landscape that was once a center of a great and vibrant city. And it is.
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