In today's Record:
7:30 p.m., Hackensack
The choirmaster at Mount Olive Baptist Church warms up the organ and the vibration rattles the snare drum, but if the music is to carry the congregation's prayers to heaven, it has to be loud.
As the pews fill, the Rev. Gregory Jackson and several other pastors file into his office to don their holy vestments for the Bergen County Council of Churches' Sept. 11 prayer service.
They hold an impromptu conference on what faith tells people about the terrorist attacks.
The world, Jackson begins, is fraught with trials and tribulations, but the Lord teaches us to be of good cheer.
Job lost everything he had, says the Rev. Donald Sheehan of St. Matthew's Roman Catholic Church in Ridgefield, but he still responded with a sense of hope.
Nonetheless, Sheehan says, the suffering of innocents is a mystery and a challenge to faith.
Out in the church, Patricia Black sits in the last pew with watery eyes and prays.
She didn't know anyone who was killed in the attacks but she still sat at home crying as the victims' relatives read the names of the dead.
"I came out because I just care about the families, the children, the mothers and fathers," she says. "I just wanted to give some of my time."
As organ fires up again, Black joins the chorus and gives her voice, too.
-- Matthew Van Dusen
