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American Morning

Spiritual Fallout

Aired September 09, 2002 - 09:50   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

PAULA ZAHN, CNN ANCHOR: As we get ready to remember a tragic day, we are going to take a close look at how the events of 9/11 and afterwards have effected all of us spiritually as a nation.
Rabbi Mark Gellman and Father Tom Hartman, better known as "The God Squad" are here.

Welcome back. Good to see the two of you.

You guys still talking to each other.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Oh, yes.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Listen, if he would read the second half of the book.

ZAHN: Oh, there we go again.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I got the original. That's OK.

ZAHN: Let's start off today by talking about the syndicated column you two jointly wrote, and you a letter from a woman named Melissa, whose brother died in the 9-11 attacks, and here is what she wrote: "What difference will any memorial make this year or for the next 100? Each September 11th, I'll just be asking God to help me get through it."

What did you tell her?

FATHER TOM HARTMAN, THE GOD SQUAD: There are certain moments in our lives that are so painful it takes a long time to get beyond them. We think that just because a year as passed, everyone is going to be OK. People like Melissa are just now expressing her feelings, her deep feelings, of pain and agony. What we would say to her is Melissa, there is a lot of evil in the world, but there is a lot more greatness. It wasn't caused by God.

And when people gather together, to celebrate, figure out how you can best celebrate. I know a parish for example, they ask the victims, people who had lost someone in the World Trade Center, what would they like to do? And they said, we want to be quiet. So all this parish doing is tolling the bell four times, just as a memorial and a remembrance of the people. We have to listen to Melissa and go with her in terms of her own healing process.

ZAHN: I know you both have spoken with...

(CROSSTALK)

ZAHN: You have spoken, as I have, with lots of family members who lost loved ones on 9-11, and I guess what I heard last week as I spent time with dozens and dozen of families is they resent the fact that somehow the rest of the world might think there is closure when in fact there is no closure. And they are very nervous about this one-year marker, and how -- and what it will represent to America.

RABBI MARC GELLMAN, THE GOD SQUAD: The exodus from Egypt happened 3,500 years ago, and my community and my faith, Judaism, is still trying to figure out what slavery in Egypt went.

The fact is that we live if a world in which movies are over in 90 minutes and shows are over in a half hour, and commercials are 30 seconds or a minute, and we are totally disoriented around the main issues of how long things take, how long they take for people to really understand the meaning of things.

We are in the middle of a war, and we can't even know it whether we have won the war or will win the war. It's like asking a year after Pearl Harbor, what will be the meaning of World War II that we're in. We can't know that.

And also there is an old saying in my tradition, we do not see the world as it is; we see the world as we are. And so people who are completely broken need to just be healed. We believe that spiritual communities help that, but many people are being healed by friendship groups. The one thing that we've seen that's true, Paula. The one thing that's absolutely true, is that no one can heal up out of this alone. They can't heal alone. They need communities, whether they are secular communities, friends, or spiritual communities, whether they read the 90 -- whether they read the 23rd Psalm that says, Lord, you are with me, I walk through the valley of death, but you are with me.

Whatever source of strength and comfort people can find, they need to find it together.

ZAHN: I wanted to close with a discussion of something the two of you wrote about in this new book you have out called, and "God Cried, Too." And you talk about how difficult it is for parents to reconcile with their children what happened, and you came up with a concept of glowers. Share that with us, just a final thought on what kind of guidance parents might give their children. We've just got about 20 seconds.

GELLMAN: It's just the story of a little angel who's trying to learn about life on Earth, and his name is Mikey, and his teacher, Gabe, shows him that the world has some evil in it, but there are also people who shine. Only the angels can see it, but they glow, and the more good you do, the more you glow, and that's what we need to do, to create a world that glows, even in the dark of evil.

HARTMAN: And I'm here to say that the rabbi is one of those glowers.

GELLMAN: Oh, shucks. And so are you, Paula.

ZAHN: You are so kind. It's a lovefest here today.

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