Activating our compassion

The Sunday after Sept. 11, we were walking home from church in New York City when we were stopped our tracks at a favorite pizza parlor. More than 300 posters of people missing from the World Trade |nter papered the outside wall.

Most of these had the same kind of information: a photograph, name, age, any, which floor of which tower the person worked on, what he or she was wearing,.distinguishing marks (moles, scars, braces) and who to contact with any information. By that however, the hospitals had identified the wounded. Standing there looking at the mostly young faces photographed at parties or college graduations, we knew these people were probably dead.

We read poster after poster, trying to find away to honor the suffering of missing and their loved ones. The pain on that wall was palpable.

And this was just one wall among Every phone booth, coffee shop door and subway entrance was covered with posters of the missing.