I have decided that I must go to what they’re now calling Ground Zero. It’s the eighth day since. . .

I get directions to the Fulton Street stop, the closest functioning stop that still runs near there. Karen, my business partner, and Jim, a retired Navy chaplain, and I meet at Grand Central Station and head down there together.

As we climb the stairs to the late day shadows, we end up on Broadway. It doesn’t take us long to fall silent, blending into the hushed tones of the area. It doesn’t take us long to see the small groups of people, huddling together as they too are drawn to what we are about to see.

It doesn’t take us long to know what others here already know.

Something is terribly wrong.

It’s hard to write coherently about it all. My thoughts erupt like the shards of life around us. . .

There is dust everywhere. Several people are walking around with white masks over their faces. Some have looks of near-panic. Police everywhere, watching. Two National Guardsmen bark loudly, "Keep moving, get your picture and move on!" Not so necessary, I think. No one is speaking above an almost whisper, and everyone, is moving in slow procession to the end. The pain and confusion are palpable.

I want to see more than the smoke which is rising rosy in the surreal sunset above the remains. There is a church which seems intact in front of the destruction around it. I wonder if I am the only one whose eyes are drawn over and over to the steeple rising straight and tall in a newly visible sky, only three stories high, if that. Another anachronism rises.

I remember visiting the World Trade Center awhile ago. I recall stopping in the Sky Cafe for a soda, and thinking how amazing the view was, and how dirty the windows were. I imagine seeing a Boeing 747 heading straight for my window. I shudder, and walk on.

We pass tall buildings devoid of life and light, and covered with grey dust. A few windows of one building are broken above the tenth floor. The quiet is deafening. No cabs, no horns, no yelling. Just the blast of a fire truck coming through with several men with no emotion on their faces. They look, but don’t see us. They are the walking wounded like I have never seen. They fight with inhuman hours and grisly work to stop the mission becoming one of "rescue" to "recovery". But I can see they know they are losing.

Finally we walk to where we can see the bent, tortured remains of the structure left standing. In one place almost twenty stories tall. I am confused. Where am I? To what war-torn movie set have I arrived? I take some photographs, hoping to capture what I cannot explain, or understand. It is something I need to do, and don’t fully know why. Tower 7 is nothing but a charred base a few stories tall, disturbing in its remains. No light or faces coming out of its dark holes. Not even reflections. Just black.

I suddenly remember many stories of souls dying unexpectedly, sometimes lingering at the site, afraid or unable to move on. I take a moment to pray for all of those who died here, but especially for those souls, that they might find their way. I feel the presence of many spirits near us. It is very real in the rubble, the smoke, the flashing lights, the dust. It is the moment that I feel my heart break.

As we head back in the twilight eerieness of worklights illuminating the site, I see people photographing scrawled messages in the dust on a storefront: God Bless America, blast the f------ terrorists to hell, we shall overcome!, Help me! People recording a moment preserved in the dry ink of crushed cement and human bone.

We pass a small shoe store. It has a glass storefront and sides. The lights are still on, and the door is locked. There is no sign of life. The shoes all have a layer of grey dust on them, in their display positions. How odd. I know now that the doors were closed immediately after the towers fell, but the cracks let in the damage and left their story on leather.

It is time to leave. There is nothing more for me to see or do here. I know in our long silences on the train back that like everyone else here we are trying to make sense of this. I hope that being at Ground Zero will help me in what I will see and hear in peoples’ stories this week. And I pray that the nightmares don’t find us.

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Sister Charleen M. Pavlik PhD, LSW, MT-BC is CEO of Angelspring Consultants, a wellness consulting group. She provides seminars and retreats, teaches at Duquesne University, and writes a column "Notes from Angelspring" for a local wellness magazine. She can be reached at angelspring@dp.net