A Cross For All America

Two years ago Los Angeles sculptor Jon Krawczyk was presented with a unique opportunity.

The image of the I-beam cross left standing in the rubble of the World Trade Center is a familiar one. In the days and weeks following 9/11 the cross became many things for many people: a symbol of hope and healing; a representation of the unyielding stance of good in the face of evil; a sign of God's presence; a meaningless coincidence. After standing for several years on a pedestal at the corner of the former Trade Center site the cross was in October 2006 moved a block away, to a place along the sidewalk next to St. Peter's Catholic Church (which itself was not only damaged when the towers fell but also played a vital role in the recovery efforts carried out in the wake of the attack). This I-beam cross would eventually be moved back to its original site, as a permanent part of the September 11th Memorial & Museum. The St. Peter's community, meanwhile, had grown attached to the cross and what it represented, and began searching for someone who could create a new cross to stand in its place. My friend Jon Krawczyk, a New Jersey native, accepted the task.

Rather than replace that I-beam cross with a replica, Jon wanted to create something completely different. After many months of designing (and redesigning), Jon had ready a model of a sculpture that, while in the basic shape of a cross, took on in abstract form the shape of a human body, comprised of several uniquely contoured pieces that came together into a single entity. The symbolism, Jon hoped, would transcend the traditional significance of the cross and make this memorial a conduit of remembrance that would embrace all Americans.

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It was March when Jon called me. I was in New Jersey, having just removed myself and my family from the nuclear disaster still developing not far from our home in Fukushima, Japan. He was almost done building this cross, he told me, and wanted me to drive cross-country with him - to help fend off the tedium of the long drive perhaps, but also to snap some pictures and maybe shoot a little video as well. 'There's a hole in the middle of the cross,' he said. 'We're probably going to meet a bunch of random people, at gas stations or wherever. I'm going to ask people we talk to if they want to write prayers or messages to put inside the cross. I have a chunk of the actual wreckage of the towers, I'm going to seal up the hole with it when we get to New York.'

Cool, I answered along with a few other vague adjectives.

'I also want to bring this thing to fire stations all across the country,' Jon went on to say. 'A lot of firemen died running into those towers trying to save people, I think we should try to pay a little tribute to them.'

Jon and I spoke of driving through deserts and over mountains, introducing his memorial to people from coast to coast. 'This could turn out to be pretty amazing,' we agreed. We also agreed, jokingly to assuage the specter of the possibility, that no one in Arizona or New Mexico or Tennessee was going to care about a twisted and contorted steel cross - aside from the novelty. Besides, 9/11 was almost ten years ago; hadn't America finished licking her wounds and moved on?

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America, although a melting pot or salad bowl or whatever other culinary allusion you prefer, is still a largely Christian nation. Everywhere we went, from the Grand Canyon to tiny DeKalb, Texas, from Katrina-ravaged New Orleans to the serenity of northern Indiana, we encountered countless people who identified with the symbolism of the cross. Hearing what it was for only served to intensify their emotions. God bless America! was the commonest of sentiments. You gentlemen certainly are doing God's work some said in so many words. Others, after half an hour or more of engaging us in conversation, called their friends over and placed their written messages in the cross and asked us to join hands with them in prayer. Thank you Lord for bringing your message to the world through these men and such.

In contrast, in 2008 Jon hauled a twenty-two-foot steel statue of a hockey player across the country on a flatbed trailer. He said few people came up to him to ask him about it. Fewer still seemed at all impressed. A fourteen-foot cross on the back of a pickup, on the other hand, stops truck drivers and housewives in their tracks; lures teenagers and the elderly over for a closer look; pulls convenience store clerks and motel cleaning staff away from their counters and carts. Obviously, to many people, this was something special.

But even as a memorial for an event as far-reaching as 9/11, not everyone felt connected to the curved and angled cross in front of them. It's a 9/11 memorial? Going to New York? That's nice... And they'd continue on their way. Some barely slowed as they glanced over, or didn't slow at all. The great majority of those we met, though, had something to say.

Not surprisingly, there were some opposing opinions mixed in with all the admiration.

In a parking lot next to the Grand Canyon we met a group of young men and women of Asian Indian descent. After an inquiry and answer session that would be repeated hundreds of times across the country one man spoke up. 'I am Hindu,' he said. 'How does a cross represent me?' Jon responded by saying that this was meant to be more than a cross; it was just as much the form of a person, comprised of parts that come together. 'Much like our country came together on that day.' The young man remained unconvinced. 'Those firemen who died,' Jon went on, 'they didn't go running into those towers to save Christians, they went in trying to save people. This isn't about religion, this is about sacrifice.'

In the end the man nodded, wrote something on a piece of paper and slipped it inside the cross.

'Trying to say this cross represents everyone,' said one Jewish man we met in Manhattan, 'is plainly misguided.' Placing a message in a cross, he explained, meant nothing to him since the cross itself has no meaning to someone of the Jewish faith. That this memorial was meant to represent something beyond the tenets of one particular faith did not change his mind. 'It is a cross, that is obvious. No matter what else you think or want it to be, it is still a cross and therefore represents only Christians. If you want to represent all people you should have symbols of all faiths.'

'I respect that this means something to you,' said one Muslim man we met on the streets of Brooklyn. 'But you need to understand that Muslims aren't going to be interested in a cross.'

When Jon finally welded into place that piece of the World Trade Center rubble, the cross contained messages from people representing every faith we encountered along our way, bolstering Jon's hope of creating a memorial that, while Christian in form, incorporated a universality. This was a cross, yes; but at the same time it was a man, an abstract human being made up of parts that came together, offered as a repository for the wishes for peace we all have.

Somwhere in this, perhaps, is something everyone can agree on.

Invitation to the Reader: Experience a day along the journey of Jon's cross - or get the complete story - at http://stpeter9-11cross.blogspot.com.

Also: Get a sneak preview of the upcoming documentary of the journey at http://www.crosscountrydoc.com.