A ministry of presence at Ground Zero 
by Vicki Hammer Rosenkrantz

This article first appeared in Newington & Avon (Connecticut) LIFE in March of 2002. It is reprinted with permission.

Ground Zero.  Ground Hero.  The Pile.  The Pit.  The Site.

The names identify a geographical location in lower Manhattan.  While in the aftermath of the September 11 terrorist attacks, the physical structure of the World Trade Center’s Twin Towers is only a memory, the history of the World Trade Center history continues to evolve.  The people working at Ground Zero, in the rubble of what was the international center of finance and commerce, are living a truly unique experience, an experience they are unlikely to ever forget.

The Rev. Jon Widing is one of those people.  Father Jon, as he is known, is the assistant to the rector at Grace Episcopal Church and chaplain for the police department in his hometown of Avon.  Since last fall he has gone to Ground Zero monthly to help in the recovery effort.

For the past 20 years, the 64-year-old priest has lived in Avon with his wife, Carol, and his son, Dan.  Dan, 29, who has Down syndrome, is a popular bagger and service clerk at the Big Y Supermarket there, where he is known as “Dan the Man.”

“I’m known around town as Dan’s dad,” the Rev. Widing said.

Rev. Widing’s background has prepared him well to minister at the rubble of the World Trade Center from a spiritual, an emotional, a physical, and a professional standpoint.  In addition to serving as a pastor and a police chaplain, he is a military veteran, a social worker, a marriage and family therapist, an emergency medical technician, and a martial artist.

The terrorist attacks came on his second day at work at Grace Church.  “I arrived for work and noticed George Choyce and others in the chapel praying,” the Rev. Widing recalled.  “We were then glued to the TV.  We held a large community service here that night.”

Shortly after, the Episcopal Diocese of Connecticut issued a call for volunteers to help I the World Trade Center recovery effort.  The Rev. Widing applied and was accepted as a volunteer.  “I felt very privileged to be allowed to go down” he said.

Originally representing and certified by the Episcopal Diocese, the Rev. Widing now works at Ground Zero as an American Red Cross volunteer.  When the National Episcopal Church transferred its pastoral volunteers to the American Red Cross, the Rev. Widing received Red Cross training, including a course in spiritual care.  That enabled him to gain full access to Ground Zero, where he is a certified volunteer working with clergy of all faiths and alongside other American Red Cross and Salvation Army volunteers.

When he goes to Manhattan, the Rev. Widing wears his Avon Police Department jacket, with the reflective bright orange side out for safety, and boots.  He also wears an American Red Cross badge that bears his photograph and the words, “NYC Incident Response” and “Full Access & Ground Zero.”  He has been issued a respirator, gloves, a hard hat, and goggles.

The Rev. Widing and other volunteers offer comfort to the workers.  “We’re a conduit of people doing work,” he said.  “The rescue work has become the recovery.  The pile has become the pit.  There are 500 people behind me who would love to be there.”

“You’re representing so many people,” he said.  “The place is carpeted wall to ceiling, every building, with people’s prayers and best wishes.”

Rev. Widing recalled the first time he went to Ground Zero.  “My first impression when I came up out of the subway was the noise of the wrecking balls and the jackhammers and the great smell of something burnt, almost a sweet acrid smell, something that you’ve never smelled before.  Bulldozers were pulling things apart,” he said.

 “There was a great silence.  There were looking, looking, looking, just desperately wanting to find something.  Everything was gray.  Nothing was recognizable except we saw part of a file cabinet and part of a computer console.  We saw bent beams and gray ash, like a moonscape.”

“There were crowds of people from every stripe and color, the New York Police Department, the Port Authority Police Department, the Secret Service and OSHA workers.  Everyone was looking after their own,” he recalled.

When he goes to New York, he takes gifts from his church.  One of the gifts he distributes to the workers is a carefully gift-wrapped small olivewood cross with a poem.  The poem, “I carry a cross in my pocket,” by Verna Thomas, explains that carrying the small cross in one’s pocket provides a private, personal affirmation, a simple reminder, of one’s religious faith.

 “It’s nice to give people something,” the Rev. Widing said. “We just need reminding.”

As he has offered the gifts to the workers, he has made some observations.  “They’re hard working people who don’t wear their hearts on their sleeves.  They all work 10-12 hours shifts,” he said.

 “They’ll be there until the last body is found and they’re down to the bedrock, at an enormous cost to their family life.  Many of them wake up at 3 a.m., drive to work, work from 6 a.m. to 6 p.m. and return home at 8, six days a week.”

“The workers speak in muted tones.  They take no photos.  They’ve had to turn the corner and consider it a construction sight because they can’t take it.  One many said without being able to go home at night and put his children to bed, he couldn’t do this.”

“You never ask someone ‘How are you doing?’” the Rev. Widing explained. “You ask ‘When did you come on duty?’ or I say ‘Where were you when the planes struck?’ It’s a very matter-of-fact question.”

At Ground Zero the Rev. Widing has two main responsibilities.  He is there for the deceased and for the workers.  He blesses the remains and escorts them as they are ceremoniously carried out of the pit on a stretcher, draped in the American flag.  He is also there to be a presence for the workers.

“The clergy’s presence is important,” he observed.

The Rev. Widing has volunteered in the morgues, both at the temporary on-site morgue know as T Mort and at the disaster morgue at Bellevue Hospital, which is called D Mort.  “The people actually handling the bodies are the New York correctional officers,” he explained.  “They volunteered for that.”

“I stand with them at D Mort.  It’s a hard job of standing and waiting.  They don’t talk about the bodies anymore.  They talk about the parts.”  He descried what workers are finding in the rubble: “belt buckles, I.D. Cards, shoestrings, wallets with photos, credit cards, and bones…”

The Rev. Widing spoke of his experiences recently at Grace Church, where parishioners have expressed a desire to hear about his monthly trips to the attack site.  “My role is to make the connection between here and there,’ he said.

He described the toil of the workers.

“With a stubborn mix of strength and care, those people are working steady on,” he said in his sermon.  “One chunk, one bucket of dust, ash, whatever at a time.  Day in day out, night-long, they set about moving mountains of I-beams, glass, plastic steel, wood, concrete that entombs their countrymen and women.”

“What’s arresting, what’s notable, is the simple doggedness of their work. (That’s what you do following a crisis.) What’s amazing (in all this) is the relentless simplicity of lift and carry and continue.  Facing a sudden, terrible total loss, and faced with an undoable task, they set emotions aside and they set about doing the job in front of them,” he continued.

 “They do what strong men and women do best – the began and they keep at it.  Nothing fancy.  Just muscles and wills at work.  The just look down and bent and bore away the nearest burden.  Shovel by shovel, bucket by bucket, truck bay load by bay load, piled on, piled high, inspected (washed down) then carried away.”

“We pull from the rubble some learning, some wisdom to better equip us for the future,” he reassured his parishioners.  Later, the Rev. Widing reflected on his experiences, calling the work “exhilarating, enervating, exhausting, energizing.”

“This is a pivotal experience of our people, certainly for Americans of our generation,” he said.  “We have to face it, deal with it, and go on from here.  We dare not put it behind us casually.  It would be irresponsible to let a tragedy of this enormity pass us by.  We must learn from it.”

“I’m being the representative of Newington and Avon… of Connecticut.  It’s not so much myself as a person.  We’re a conduit to tie everything together.”

 “I know everyone up here would give their eye teeth to be there,” he said.  “It’s a ministry of presence.” 

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