9/11 and anger

I suspect I'll post less on 9/11 than I otherwise might have. I had to turn off ABC's excellent "Path to 9/11" miniseries tonight, because I was so filled with anger and emotion just watching it that I didn't know what to do. I still have a pounding tension headache from it. I spent pretty much the entire year after 9/11 living with this anger. I had to start wearing a mouth guard as I slept at night, because I ground my teeth so much. I remember the smell of burning human flesh hanging over our neighborhood in Brooklyn for that first week. On 9/12, I went into a Catholic parish in Bay Ridge, and found it filled at noon with people praying. It had a dome, and smoke from the pile had gathered there, like incense hovering over the faithful. I remember what the sunlight looked like passing through it. It smelled like burning wire, with a faint note of sweetness. That was the human flesh.

I went to several firefighter funerals that fall. One in particular comes to mind now. We lost eight firemen from our neighborhood station. After one of the funerals, which I observed from the sidewalk (the church was too full to get in), I saw the dead man's wife and small children come out. The boy was wearing his father's hat. After everyone gave them condolences, they finally made their way down the Brooklyn street, until nobody could see them anymore. I followed them from a distance, and watched them load up into the minivan and drive away, into the rest of their lives.

I wonder where those kids are now? I'm also thinking tonight about John Rigo. Nice guy -- we met him when we were in Rome in early 2001 for the consistory. He and his wife Betsy were in our little inexpensive hotel, the Due Torre. They were taking their young nephew Jackson on a tour of Europe. We met them for breakfast a couple of times, and really enjoyed their company. John was killed instantly in his WTC office when Mohammed Atta flew his plane into the north tower.

It occurred to me today that within a space of one year, we had 9/11, and the breaking open of the Catholic priest sex scandal, first in Boston then elsewhere. I got so overcome with anger about all of those things that a military chaplain friend suggested to me that I should see a counselor or something, because it sounded to him like I had PTSD. He told me he'd been worried about that ever since I'd told him on 9/11 that I'd seen the south tower fall. So I went to see a Catholic psychotherapist in NYC, hoping that someone who understood something about Christian spirituality would be better able to help me deal with all the rage I still had at the hijackers, which had gotten all mixed up with fury at abuser priests and the bishops who enabled them.

That was going okay, until the third meeting, when he attacked me for having written a piece in the Wall Street Journal saying that John Paul had "let us down" by not disciplining the US church more firmly regarding the sex scandal. The therapist literally began yelling at me. He called me a "new Luther." He kept yelling, saying that I was going to lose my soul and destroy my marriage if I kept writing these things about the Church. He told me that the demons had hold of me. He told me that only the saints have the right to question a Pope's judgment, but being saints, they never would do so. He went on like this for an hour. I was so shell-shocked at the end of it that I just paid my money and shuffled out. A day or two later, I wrote him and accused him of malpractice, and told him if he didn't apologize and refund my money I was going to turn him in to the state licensing board. I got my money back. I wish I had turned him in all the same. God knows how many other people he browbeat like that.

That fall, I was in another American city for Thanksgiving, far away from NYC. I was at a big Thanksgiving dinner. All I could think about was what had happened only a couple of months earlier. Everybody at the party chattered happily about everything else but 9/11. I found myself sitting quietly, fighting anger. I was overwhelmed by emotion over the 9/11 loss, and being thankful for my country and for the firefighters and all the rest, but I was also nearly overwhelmed with anger over the fact that no one else at that party seemed to be paying any mind at all to the solemnity of the occasion. And then I got mad at myself for being mad at them. Why should they have been as morose as I was? It didn't happen to their city. They didn't see it take place with their own eyes. It was a TV event for them. I had no right to hold anything against them. What was wrong with me?

Anger. You make bad decisions out of anger. I was gung-ho for the Iraq War out of anger, out of wanting a sense of vengeance. But I do think that being angry, still, about what was done to my city and my country and people I know on that day keeps me paying attention to things that a lot of people don't think to pay attention to, or don't want to pay attention to, and it keeps me passionate about them. So is anger constructive? Yes, it can be. But it can also mislead and destroy. I hate with the purest hate over 9/11 stuff. I'm not proud of it -- quite the contrary -- but it's difficult to control. Once in Dallas, I was in an editorial board meeting -- I'd been here only a few months, which is to say not quite two years after 9/11 -- and some expatriate American author was talking to us. We were looking for something to ask him about, so I asked him what it was like living in Panama on 9/11, watching what was happening back in the US. He said that there's a large Arab community in his city, and they were celebrating the events in New York and Washington, and really, can you blame them? I started shaking with rage -- literally shaking -- and had to get up to leave the room. I think I might have gone across the table to get the guy if I had stayed. I've never been so angry, at anything or anyone.

If I know what's good for me, I'll keep the TV off tomorrow. But I never know what's good for me about this stuff. For some reason, I have to watch everything about 9/11 that's ever on. I have to look at every picture. I think all the time about what it was like to be in those towers when they started to fall. Sometimes, even now, I fall asleep thinking about everything that happened on that day. I can't decide if that's a matter of keeping faith, or a matter of being trapped.

P.S. to those who posted in the comboxes on an earlier thread. I deleted that one, because one of the usual handful of idiots who comes around here with her deranged spitefulness provoked me into acknowledging her existence. I don't want that stain on this blog, so I deleted it. Remember that Beliefnet won't let me ban any of these people. They just have to be endured. I'm sure they will trash this combox with their musings, but I won't be responding. Sorry if I deleted your post -- feel free to repost on this thread if you like.