To think - we woke up early before school even began!
Yes, it's true, we woke up early one August morning to stand at Rockefeller Center outside of the NBC studios dressed in black cassocks so as to get on tv. And we succeeded!
Wait until the bishop sees this!!!
Wednesday night a number of students including myself went down to the Lower Manhattan area to help distribute food to relief workers at the Seaman's Institute. Normally this place, which is owned by the Episcopal Church serves seafarers who when in port take respite. They have meats, pasta, cole slaw, potatos, coffee and water and other such things available 24 hours. We also packed food to go and distributed it among the workers in the street. Initially we took a bus out to 14th and 3rd ave and then had to walk the rest of the way. There were checkpoints along the route in order to make sure we were there for legitimate purposes.
The Seaman's Institute was running some light with generators, but it was mostly by candlelight that we worked. Later we were able to have some police escort us in further through the dust and papers strewn about. Before we knew it, we were at the site of the WTC. Crews were working with huge spotlights and a section of a side wall was atop rubble on a slant. It looked almost unreal. A sanitation worker got us face masks and we spent the time handing out water and food and coffee. We walked all the way down to Battery Park, and then headed north again. On our way out we noticed the cars that had been towed out of the area; they were burnt and mangled...didn't really look like cars at all. Finally around 2 am we arrived home.
Thursday morning Rowan Williams (author of "Resurrection" and Archbishop of Wales) came and lectured. He happened to have been taping at Trinity Wall Street while it happened. That evening I headed back out to the Seaman's Institute and doing much of the same as wednesday night. Instead of delivering the food and water on foot, I was in the back of a pick up truck handing it out to workers and others on the job. Suddenly it began to rain and thunder, the wind picked up and every one near the site was being brought back because they thought one of the buildings was about to collapse.
The rain that fell brought with it tiny particles which we supposedly fragments of pulverized glass. I found myself climbing into a plastic garbage bag for safety as we rushed our way back to the Institute amid the chaos. As soon as a group of us could, we left to be on our way home. Being cold and wet, home was the ideal place to be... An ambulance passed by us asking directions for Chelsea, and I suddenly found myself saying that we knew our way there and could we get a lift seeing that the seminary is also in Chelsea. Seven of us climbed into this ambulance from Ohio and got home around 2:30am.
I haven't been back to the Institute although I have been down to Wall Street since that thursday night. As I have had more distance to what happened I get more of a chance to think, which was frustrating, but now it's ok.
On campus we have had two seminars on Critical Incidence Stress Reactions and things seem to be coming more to a sense of normalcy: being frantic about exegetes and midterms or when we have acolyte duty.
General is a nice place, although we are in the midst of a big city and chaos, we have our own tranquil setting. This is not to say that we shut out others or shut in ourselves, but it is a sort of different world.
Chicho's best furry friend is Belle Whatley. As you can see, Belle is of the feline variety and slightly larger than young Chicho. Surprisingly enough they get along quite well (supervised visits only).
This coming Fall, Belle will be moving across the street with her mommy and new daddy. Chicho is hoping that he will still have a playmate.
This year it was held Thursday, September 27, giving new students just enough time to fix their rooms for company and get class schedules straight along with daily life. I was fortunate to have my parents come up and spend the weekend on the Close. The book we signed has been in use since 1822; we were later able to peruse through it at the deanery one afternoon.
The ceremony was very nice (so was dinner). The organist played the longest version of St. Patrick's Breastplate that I have ever heard.... Seven verses plus long interludes between each, as the largest entering class in seminarys history penned their names just pages away from the first ones who ever signed.
