story262.xml
Title
story262.xml
Source
born-digital
Media Type
story
Date Entered
2002-03-17
911DA Story: Story
I pastor a small church in Westport, MA, and also do computer consulting work from home, often working all night. I'd only been asleep a few hours when the phone rang the morning of Sept. 11--my son, calling from his job as cook in a retirement center.
He told me a fantastic story about a plane crashing into the WTC, and I guessed a small plane. He told me it was a passenger plane. I refused to believe it...what professional pilot couldn't miss a building that big? Someone must pulling a hoax. He told me it was on the television and I should listen--but being sleep-deprived, I groggily said "Later, I will," and hung up. I said a prayer for all who were caught up in whatever was happening, sank back into sleep.
It can have been only a few minutes before my "semi-son," who stays with us, called from his workplace. His voice was excited, urgent--"Ma! Wake up and turn on the tv! Two planes hit the WTC! We're being attacked!"
That woke me up.
Turning on CNN, I saw the horrible pictures now so familiar to all of us, and felt sickened. Just one week earlier my son and his girlfriend had returned from a European trip. I'd dropped them off at Logan Airport, and picked them up there--with horrible premonitions of an airline crash. For months, each time I looked at an airplane, I "saw" it covered by lines as if it had been torn apart and pieced back together. I chided myself for my premonitions, but was so relieved when they were safely off the plane!
That day I called the firm in Cambridge I'd been doing extra work for and told them I wouldn't be in...I needed to be at my church. I started making contact with parishioners, to hold a 7 PM prayer service.
I found that one of our Westport mothers, not a member of our church but connected through her daughter to church members, was a flight attendant on American Airlines 11, and was missing. Diane Snyder died that day when her plane crashed into the WTC.
The MA Conference of the United Church of Christ had liturgies and prayers posted as resources for churches and pastors by that afternoon, which was a blessing. The following weeks have been difficult--no less so for pastors, as we struggled to deal with our own sense of loss and the enormity of raw evil exposed that day, while
still seeking and offering the love and peace that faith should untimately embrace.
We endure, and may God turn and transform even this evil into something that might point toward the good.
He told me a fantastic story about a plane crashing into the WTC, and I guessed a small plane. He told me it was a passenger plane. I refused to believe it...what professional pilot couldn't miss a building that big? Someone must pulling a hoax. He told me it was on the television and I should listen--but being sleep-deprived, I groggily said "Later, I will," and hung up. I said a prayer for all who were caught up in whatever was happening, sank back into sleep.
It can have been only a few minutes before my "semi-son," who stays with us, called from his workplace. His voice was excited, urgent--"Ma! Wake up and turn on the tv! Two planes hit the WTC! We're being attacked!"
That woke me up.
Turning on CNN, I saw the horrible pictures now so familiar to all of us, and felt sickened. Just one week earlier my son and his girlfriend had returned from a European trip. I'd dropped them off at Logan Airport, and picked them up there--with horrible premonitions of an airline crash. For months, each time I looked at an airplane, I "saw" it covered by lines as if it had been torn apart and pieced back together. I chided myself for my premonitions, but was so relieved when they were safely off the plane!
That day I called the firm in Cambridge I'd been doing extra work for and told them I wouldn't be in...I needed to be at my church. I started making contact with parishioners, to hold a 7 PM prayer service.
I found that one of our Westport mothers, not a member of our church but connected through her daughter to church members, was a flight attendant on American Airlines 11, and was missing. Diane Snyder died that day when her plane crashed into the WTC.
The MA Conference of the United Church of Christ had liturgies and prayers posted as resources for churches and pastors by that afternoon, which was a blessing. The following weeks have been difficult--no less so for pastors, as we struggled to deal with our own sense of loss and the enormity of raw evil exposed that day, while
still seeking and offering the love and peace that faith should untimately embrace.
We endure, and may God turn and transform even this evil into something that might point toward the good.
Collection
Citation
“story262.xml,” September 11 Digital Archive, accessed December 13, 2025, https://911digitalarchive.org/items/show/12047.