A tutorial is a small class companion for a larger lecture course. It is designed so we can speak. I was in Old Testament tutorial that morning, I think. They called it Old Testament. I called it Hebrew Bible. That’s a thing, you know. It matters what you call something, you know; it frames what it becomes, whose it is and whose it can be. I think I was in Hebrew Bible tutorial that started at 9 am. Maybe it went until 9:50. It was one of our first classes, it might have been our first day of classes. I don’t remember the grad student who taught it or who was in it, except Dennis I think and maybe Liz. I remember later on discussing the rape of Dinah I think with Dennis Patterson. The sons of Jacob had a sister and a woman in tutorial, or two women, maybe, pointed out the absence of Dinah’s voice in the story. Bible women are lucky to have a name, let alone a voice. Her brothers went to war because she was raped, maybe, but maybe not, and her voice is not present to tell her story, to clarify her wishes. I think it maybe was Dennis Patterson who said, Women didn’t have a role in the public life of the family, and, It’s appropriate that her voice is not present, or, Her wishes are not relevant, and, She has no role in the war. I don’t know if the tutor I can’t remember said anything. I spoke then, later on. I think I said, quietly I think, I think to Dennis Patterson, But she does have a role, or, She is the catalyst! and, She just is not allowed to speak. But that was later. I don’t remember if I said anything that morning between 9 and 9:50.
Everyone talks about how blue the sky was. How clear the sky was that morning. My next class was a large survey lecture course on Systematic Theology. There was ten minutes to walk down the hall to the room, our biggest lecture room. The room was electric. I didn’t understand. I sat in the back. I don’t know how I got there. Everyone was talking. I don’t remember who was talking. I don’t know what words or who or how. I don’t know how much I knew by the time the class started. I knew a plane or two planes had crashed into the towers. I knew I was sitting between two women who had loved ones on flights that morning. Beverly Dempsey. I would find out later that she had two pairs of glasses to match different outfits, which I thought decadent. I knew I didn’t want to hear a lecture, or I couldn’t hear a lecture.
Dr. James Cone was a prominent liberation theologian. His books on Black Liberation are theology and Black power and Malcom and Marx and blues and Martin and spirituals and Sinai and W.E.B. Groundbreaking. Necessary. He did something to quiet us, maybe he just walked in and we quieted to listen. We were still electric, but like the sound of lights overhead. Theology is making meaning of crisis, which is needed this morning, he said. If nobody objects, I will hold class this morning. Good. The study of Systematic Theology is… something banal. Something, I suspected, from his notes that may have been the same notes read last year when a plane or two planes hadn’t hit the towers. I suspected possibly the same notes read every year before since he started reading notes in Systematic Theology at Union in 1970, or Adrian before that, or Philander Smith before that. A few sentences later he told a joke: Some people say that you haven’t studied Systematic Theology until you’ve studied it with Dr. James Cone. A plane or two planes had hit the World Trade Center. A woman on either side of me had a loved one on a flight that morning. Beverly Dempsey. I would find out later that her husband was safe. I didn’t want to hear a lecture. I couldn’t hear a lecture. It’s not designed for us to speak. I didn’t. I didn’t know how to make it stop.
Some guy came in late. David Nuss. I didn’t know his name yet. We didn’t speak ever, not once, in three years of graduate school together. I never had him in another class that I know of. This is the only reason I knew his name and why I know it now to google him to find out he was in a blues band in 2003. That in 2012 he was in a metal band that played Process Church Theology. Satan and Christ and reconciliation and synthesis. Groundbreaking. Necessary. He looked around the room. He sat down in a chair near the door. He didn’t sit down in a chair near the door. He started to sit, and stood. He started to sit, and sat. He didn’t sit still. I didn’t look away. All of my thought and energy and electricity was fixed on David Nuss. I may have thought only, Do it. Do it. Please do it. David Nuss stood and spoke. “Do you know what’s happened?” Dr. James Cone turned and shot, “Don’t interrupt me!” But it was over. We were loud electric again. Everyone was talking. I don’t remember who was talking. I don’t know what words or who or how. We all stood up. Class was over.
We spilled into the halls, into the hub, into the quad. If you’ve ever seen an episode of Law & Order, you’ve seen our quad in the outdoor student scene. Someone moved televisions into the hub to play the news coverage. Someone announced that professors would be at class all day, but there would be no more lectures. Students could get support from them or from the chaplain. That was the only year we had a chaplain. That may have been the year we didn’t have a chaplain. I didn’t know anybody. I knew one woman from orientation. Liz Theoharis. She has been organizing against poverty for twenty years. She is organizing now with Rev. William Barber. If you’ve seen Rev. William Barber speak in the last three years, you’ve seen Liz Theoharis. Women are lucky to have a name.
I stayed in south Harlem that night. My girlfriend watched the Trade Center smoke from the roof of the Park Slope coop. She didn’t watch, but her co-workers did. I dialed a thousand times and got a thousand busy signals until we could speak. Stay where you are. Call your mom. I love you. Lambda Legal is on Wall Street at Water and I’d stopped working there in August. We celebrated the summer interns at Windows on the World at the top of Building One in August. My friends at Lambda walked home at the margins of the city, over the Williamsburg Bridge, covered in the ash of buildings and bodies. Stevie from church called in sick to Windows and didn’t die that morning. I don’t know how to google him. Renee Barrett from church went to work at Cantor Fitzgerald and died. She was waiting for the elevator when the plane hit Tower One. The fire traveled down the shaft and exploded out of the elevator doors. Her friends carried her burned and unconscious down the stairs. I don’t know how to google them. She never woke. Lambda Legal worked with queer partners to receive survivor benefits, but Renee Barrett’s partner wasn’t out. Renee Barrett wasn’t out. They weren’t married and we couldn’t. Renee Barrett’s partner decided not to fight Renee Barrett’s family.
It was weeks before I didn’t startle at the sound of a plane overhead. For a week or two a lot of New York was gentle, nicer in the crowded trains and crowded streets and crowded businesses. And then we weren’t. In Brooklyn, the police stationed guards at the Avenue C mosque. For their safety. My walk home from the F train was a forest of U.S. flags in yards, on windows and doors. It matters what flag you fly, you know; it frames what we become, whose we are and whose we can be. The house with a vegetable garden and a row of sunflowers in the front stoop was an oasis (again) and flew a blue marble flag. Earth from space.
Rev. Miller Hoffman 