September 22

7:00 p.m.—Ever since September 11, I've wanted to come see you. Maybe it's just to confirm what I know in my heart already—that you are all right. So it's Saturday night, and I'm riding the train down from Boston to be with you, if only for a few hours. To walk in your streets, see your faces, feel the comfort of your presence. And most of all, to pray with you.

I've loved your dazzling city since I was a little girl—the theaters, cafes, grand churches and concert halls and skyscrapers, smoking chestnuts on street corners. But way beyond all that, it's your welcoming, vibrant, indomitable spirit that's so irresistible. And that, I just have to believe, is still there. Anything so good, so essentially spiritual, has got to be ineradicable. God Himself sustains it.

9:30 p.m.—Penn Station is eerily quiet, and a taxi is easy to find. At my hotel in mid town Manhattan, the porter tells me the restaurants and hotels are all but empty. "People are shell-shocked," he says.

But as I have a bowl of soup in the hotel cafe, there's a hopeful sign. The Mets-Braves baseball game comes on—and half dozen of us in the room start watching the home team play. A few people out on the sidewalk watch through the window, too, as the Mets swing their way to a 7–3 win. And somehow in the midst of that—just for the moment—things start to feel right again. It's a tiny promise of revival.

September 23

9:45 a.m.—Walking past Columbus Circle on my way back from breakfast at the corner deli, I stop to look at the hundreds of candles you're lit to keep vigil for the sons, daughters, spouses, mothers, and fathers, who are missing after the World Trade Towers attack. I'm touched by the gorgeous roses and carnations you're laid out there, at the foot of the monument to some "valiant seamen" who once died in a shipwreck.

And as I read your handwritten messages on pieces of paper at the foot of the monument, it's like listening to your hearts speak:

• Peace on earth!!

• Love and strength and hope To rebuild the city of New York

• Hate begets hate Stop the thirst for more bloodshed and revenge I love NYC God bless the world!

• Our beauty is in our diversity Our strength is in our unity Our salvation is in our love.

And then, off to the side of the monument, stands the big homemade sign one of you made out of an old home-movie screen. "VISUALIZE WORLD PEACE," it says in huge magic-marker letters, along with "Love" in about 15 different languages.

It's funny about that old screen. The thing falls over every time a gust of wind comes along. But each time, the people standing around doggedly set it back up again on its flimsy tripod. I have to smile, as a homeless man and a man with a fancy cashmere sweater team up to resurrect the sign yet again—talking together like old friends.

That's exactly what is so amazing. People all over the city are teaming up, talking together, binding together, like never before. It's as if something bigger than all of us is gathering you and me and everyone into arms big enough to hold every last one of us. To hold us close. To comfort us. To just plain love us.

And impossible as it might seem right now, I just have to believe God's arms are big enough—generous, forgiving, and omnipotent enough—to gather in even the "enemy." That enemy who punched out two giant gaps in your skyline on September 11. And yes, to ultimately transform that enemy. To redeem them (and all of us!) with a holy Love that knows no opposite. You said it so right ... "God bless the world!"

11:15 a.m.—I meet another Sentinel staffer back at Penn Station, and the two of us take the subway to Wall Street, only a couple of blocks from "Ground Zero," where the recovery/clean-up operation goes on around the clock.

We can't see the still-smoldering mass that was once the World Trade Center, but we feel it presence—in the pungent, smoke-laden air and the low hum of nearby machinery. Security is tight, and National Guardsmen with gas masks cluster at street corners. And everywhere—on fences, buildings, phone booths—are poignant fliers pleading for information about people who are missing.

Yet as my friend and I join the hundreds of you quietly strolling the narrow streets surrounding Ground Zero, we somehow feel at home. We're thankful to be here with you. To join in your reverent stillness before homemade altars with flags and candles and open Bibles. To walk alongside contemplative couples with baby carriages, teenagers, seniors. And to pray along with you for the thousands who are missing.

12:30 p.m.—Before we head back to midtown, my friend and I take the ferry across the harbor to Staten Island and stand along with you to view the strangely altered cityscape. It's a hushed and sober moment.

But there's another sight that we all turn to as we cross the harbor—the Statue of Liberty. Even through the haze of the Ground Zero smog, the 151-foot-high statue of a woman holding high the flame of freedom in mid-harbor is newly compelling. One man leans on the rail and watches her, transfixed, for most of the trip.

As I look at the statue that symbolizes freedom for your city, and America, and the world, I think of Mary Baker Eddy's words—"Love is the liberator" (Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, p. 225). And that helps me remember how universally tender God's love is. How unrelentingly vigilant. How utterly invincible. It's that almighty Love that will free the world from terror: It will comfort people who are beyond comfort. It will bless you and your loved ones.

7:30 p.m.—On the train back to Boston, I sit beside a young man who sees me open up my laptop and continue writings this message to my friends in New York. He tells me he's from Boston, too, and has spent a week volunteering with the rescue operation in lower Manhattan.

"Your friends in New York will rebuild," he says authoritatively. "They're binding together. They're finding strength they never knew they had."

"Yes," I say. "I found that out."

Mary Trammell
Editor