REMEMBERING 9/11: Rev. Frederic Brussat and Rev. Mary Ann Brussat were living and working in Manhattan on 9/11. They were in their home in midtown but the magazine they worked for was located in the skyscraper behind the historic Trinity Church at the end of Wall Street, just three blocks from the Twin Towers. They wrote a prayer poem called “Rest in Peace” about the tragedy. We have shared a portion of the work.

“I am a World Trade Center tower, standing tall in the clear blue sky, feeling a violent blow in my side, and

I am a towering inferno of pain and suffering imploding upon myself and collapsing to the ground.

May I rest in peace.

I am a terrified passenger on a hijacked airplane not knowing where we are going or that I am riding on fuel tanks that will be instruments of death, and

I am a worker arriving at my office not knowing that in just a moment my future will be obliterated.

May I rest in peace.

I am a pigeon in the plaza between the two towers eating crumbs from someone’s breakfast when fire rains down on me from the skies, and

I am a bed of flowers admired daily by thousands of tourists now buried under five stories of rubble.

May I rest in peace.

I am a firefighter sent into dark corridors of smoke and debris on a mission of mercy only to have it collapse around me, and

I am a rescue worker risking my life to save lives who is very aware that I may not make it out alive.

May I rest in peace.

…I am a child of God who believes that we are all children of God and we are all part of one another.

May we all know peace.”