I was surprised when, seeing a New Testament position in New York City advertised recently, I did not feel extremely tempted to apply. As a native of NYC, I do miss it, enough so that I was rather glad when, coming back from an overseas conference trip not that long ago, we missed a connection and had to spend a day in the city waiting for the next flight back to Indianapolis.
I’m glad, however, that I was teaching in Manhattan seven years ago, in the 2001 academic year. I think it would have been far more traumatic for me to see what was going on and to be far away, cut off from the city. It was better to be there, even though it meant experiencing the posters on walls and lampposts all over the city. Even though it meant experiencing the nauseating smell of death on a subway trip.
I regret that, about a week prior to September 11th, 2001, I decided to get off at the World Trade Center stop rather than my usual one, and did not take the time to look up, to take a good long stare at the twin towers.
That year one of the schools I taught at was Alliance Theological Seminary, located halfway between Canal Street where vehicle traffic was being stopped, and the place where all access to Ground Zero was being stopped. The seminary was closed for about a week.
That year, teaching a class on Biblical interpretation was different. We couldn’t simply gloss over the imprecations of Psalm 137. We had to talk about them, differently than we might have in some other academic year.
I don’t know if I will ever live in New York City again, but I hope to get back more often than I currently do. I’ve visited and even lived in a number of wonderful cities around the world, but New York remains special.
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