Search for solace

By Jennifer Garza -- Bee Staff Writer
Published 2:15 a.m. PDT Sunday, Sept. 8, 2002

Since the events of a year ago, many Americans have been on a spiritual journey fraught with questions. For some, it has been painful re-examination of long-held beliefs. For others, a renewal of faith. They are united by a common question: How could such a horrible thing happen?

	Derrill Bodley has a photo of his daughter close by as he waits to join a presentation by the September Eleventh Families for Peaceful Tomorrows. Sacramento Bee/Hector Amezcua

In the months after his daughter's death, Derrill Bodley felt himself slipping deeper into a spiritual abyss.

Bodley's only child, Deora, was killed when American United Airlines Flight 93 crashed into the Pennsylvania countryside last September. Bodley, a Sacramento City College music professor, had never considered himself a religious man. But in the end, the crash site itself became his salvation.

"I pursued spiritual solutions pretty strongly for awhile," said Bodley. He attended interfaith services. He prayed regularly. He talked with other victims' families about what he was going through.

But he struggled.

"Doubt and depression got in the way," he said. "I still believe…but some days are just better than others."

Like so many others, Bodley has been on a spiritual journey fraught with questions since the events of a year ago. For some, it has been a painful re-examination of long-held beliefs. For others, a renewal of faith.

Muslims, Jews, Christians and others have wrestled with their faiths, united by a common question: How could such a horrible thing happen?

Some were lucky enough to find answers, though in different places, through different routes.

Interest in the apocalypse has jumped.

So, too, have sales of religious books -- Bibles and the Quran, particularly -- and inspirational music.

A recent Gallup poll showed that 71 percent of Americans - an all-time high - believe religion influences our daily life more than ever.

The post-Sept. 11 spiritual journey began for many right after the attacks, with strangers reaching out to strangers. Believers saw the hand of God in those connections.

Mindi Russell, a chaplain with the Sacramento Law Enforcement Chaplaincy, spent 16 days working at Ground Zero. What she found there revitalized her faith.

"It was the most hellish situation, but there was a heavenly presence," Russell said. "God was everywhere."

Russell flew into New York with the military late on Sept. 11. One of her first assignments was to check on people by going door-to-door in apartments and office buildings near the attacks.

"We found about seven people who couldn't eat, couldn't do anything; some of them were sitting there in the dark," Russell said. "When we asked them why, they said it was because they thought it was the beginning of the end of the world."

For many, Sept. 11 was the beginning of a search for meaning that has provided few easy answers.

"I don't understand it intellectually and I certainly don't understand it spiritually," David Gordon, a native New Yorker who now lives in El Dorado Hills, said of the attacks.

After watching the devastation on television, Gordon, a psychiatrist, found himself angry and anxious, consumed by the question "Why?"

Eventually, Gordon found comfort in his Jewish faith, becoming more active in his Orangevale synagogue, Temple Or Rishon. But even that comfort gives him pause.

"Understanding why remains a spiritual and cognitive mystery," said Gordon, 54.

For Sacramentan Kais Menoufy, by contrast, the past year has been filled with revelations. Before last September, Menoufy focused mostly on his work as chief executive officer of Delegata, a computer software firm. Now he also spends hours following world events and talking to others about Islam.

"I am very sad that this has come to this country," said Menoufy, 55, who was born in Egypt. "And there is so much misunderstanding of our religions…on all sides."

Menoufy now runs "One God, One Message," a nonprofit organization that promotes similarities between the faiths. Since Sept. 11, Menoufy has been spreading his message at churches and synagogues, explaining, for instance, that the Quran mentions Jesus more often than Muhammad.

"Once people understand what the Quran says about Jesus and Moses," he said, "they realize we're not against them."

For some without a specific belief system, Sept. 11 was a spiritual wake-up call - a time to find greater meaning in life. Flight attendant Heather Lauter-Clay had long found her job both emotionally and spiritually draining. She felt empty.

After the terrorist attacks, she took a leave of absence and has not flown since. She concentrates on reaching out to other flight attendants who are spiritually adrift.

"I'm on a path of spirituality right now; I don't know how to describe it," said Lauter-Clay, 29. "I don't claim one religion for myself. I believe in elements of all the religions I've seen all over the world."

Derrill Bodley's spiritual journey literally took him to the other side of the world. After his daughter, Deora, died aboard American United Flight 93 last year, he felt a need to do something. So in January, Bodley traveled to Afghanistan with a human rights group to meet the families of other victims. He returned with a mission to promote peace.

He also found solace in an unexpected place: at the plane crash site. In the past year, Bodley has made several pilgrimages there.

In the rural setting, he finds he can soak in Deora's presence. He sits for hours thinking about his daughter, he said, praying and contemplating his loss.

On one of his trips Bodley met members of a local religious commune. They have a sanctuary called a "peace barn" where Bodley has since sat for hours and prayed for peace.

"I'm looking for what I call the 'white light' of understanding, and I hope I find it before I die," he said. "I think my daughter did. I don't know why I think that. I just do."