This is a speech (with original punctuation) about heroes that Bob Kennel, writer of a Sept. 13 letter to the editor, gave to N.C. State University alumni in 2008. In the piece, titled "Four prayers from a hero," he details the story of John Cerqueira, an NCSU alum who rescued a woman from the twin towers on 9/11.
This is an interesting situation to speak a holy word but without all the religious terms that most of us have experienced all our lives. Speaking in a public setting has constraints that would not have been present when many of us graduated from NC State back in 1958. Several weeks ago I preached a sermon that hit me between the eyes as a message that centers upon God but is really universal – and it would be appropriate for today. So that’s what I am going to do. I would like to speak about Shepherds and Heroes from traditional Scriptures that are important to Judaism, Christianity and Islam.
Old Testament – Psalm 23 (Lord is my Shepherd, Valley of Shadow of Death)
New Testament – Matthew 18: 12-13 (Seeking the Lost Sheep)
Quran – Al Maidah 2 (Help one another in Righteousness and Piety)
First I would like to speak a few words about “HEROES.” our need for heroes, and some heroic acts.
There’s an advertisement about celebrities with a white upper lip that says “GOT MILK?” with the recognition that we all need milk. My question today is, “GOT HEROES?”
Goodness knows we need some heroes in today’s world. Issues of the World, of our Nation, of our families, beg for some legitimate Heroes to be present. In its simplest form my definition of a hero is someone who has been a leader who stood for something beyond themselves and willing to sacrifice beyond their own self for the good of others.
I have some heroes to me in various walks of life such as in the family or in society. Who are your heroes?
FAMILY: I was blessed with many good family members, but my hero was my Mother, Nora Kennel. It has been over 5 years since she died at the age of 89 in good health. She was a Heroine to me for many reasons.
PUBLIC: For various reasons my national heroes are people like former Chief of Staff General Hugh Shelton in the military, Baseball Catcher Roy Campanella with the old Brooklyn Dodgers, and Former Governor Jim Hunt here in North Carolina. Who are your heroes?
But today I want to share a story about a unique North Carolina Hero you may never have heard of or may have forgotten if you had. This about a Hero from September 11, 2001 on that horrible day that we are all still coming to grips with. Now this is not a sad story, but an uplifting one, and personifies to me the qualities of a “HERO” as well as a Shepherd, and more specifically the four prayers he prayed that fateful day that we might relate to.
This is about a young man named John Cerqueira from Cary, NC who graduated from NC State in May 2001 and immediately went to work in New York City which he had always wanted to do. John is also a Delta Sigma Phi fraternity brother whom I have gotten to know pretty well over the past ten years.
John was working on the 81st floor of the World Trade Center on 9/11 when the first terrorist plane crashed some 8 stories above him. He came down the stairs, stopping at the 68th floor where he and his boss picked up a disabled lady and carried her 68 floors down to safety and then had to run for their lives when the whole building came down around them. John’s story was on the front page of USA Today and in People Magazine, and he was on Oprah and NBC Today as well as touring with Christopher Reeves to help raise money for the victim’s families. He was also honored at halftime at Carter-Finley Stadium where Governor Easley presented him with the Order of the Long Leaf Pine. None of the sound bites, however, told the whole story I would like to share with you today.
It was not until 5 months later when we had invited John to share with our Men’s Fellowship group at Covenant Christian Church that he broke down and told the whole story. John was in tears several times telling the story, and most of us had wet eyes as well. There are some great insights into what were a truly heroic series of acts on his part and the meaning of the four prayers that he prayed.
John’s story carries direct meaning from all of our scripture readings today –
John Cerqueira was at work at the World Trade Center the morning of 9/11 actually recovering from a turned ankle playing basketball a week earlier. When the first terrorist plane hit above him, he felt the building shudder but said he didn’t know what had happened. Very shortly, however, they knew that something was terribly wrong, and his boss said for everyone to leave immediately.
John prayed his first prayer, which we might called a “foxhole prayer”, a prayer of Dependence. He had been raised Catholic, was an altar boy, but had fallen away from church somewhat during his High School and College years. He prayed, “You are my shepherd, God help me”, and he said he figured God would put it on His “rolodex” and get to it at the appropriate time. But he had confidence that the Good Shepherd would take care of him.
Down he and his boss went, floor by floor, with other people coming into the stairwell at each level. The stairwell allowed people two abreast to get down. At the 65th floor they were blocked up and they doubled back to the 68th floor to an open atrium area where there were more stairwells down.
This atrium also had glass walled conference rooms encircling the area, and John saw a circle of women standing in one of the conference rooms. He opened the door to encourage them to leave immediately, but nobody moved. He went up to the circle and put his hand on a woman’s shoulder only to see she was sitting in a motorized wheel chair. They were in a circle praying, with no one willing to leave the disabled lady alone, but also not able to resolve the situation. He told everyone to get moving NOW! And picked up the disabled woman and headed down a different stairwell followed by the women. John had become a shepherd himself!
He and his boss strapped the woman into an emergency sling in the stairwell built for such descents when the elevators were out of order.
Down they went, floor by floor, go down, wait for others to filter in, go down again. At the 30th floor they met the first firemen coming up the stairs, the younger men with heavy loads and the older men catching their breaths over several floors. Other shepherds seeking the lost.
At the 6th floor everything was totally blocked up. The firemen and police said the way they had just come in was totally blocked with no way out. What John did not know was that the second Trade Tower had just fallen.
This valley of the shadow of death was extremely narrow. John prayed a second prayer that was urgent, “God we need you right now. We need a way out of here and need Your full attention NOW!”. John said a feeling came over him that God would meet his specific needs, which calmed his fears, and gave him confidence they would get out.
They doubled back up to the 11th floor where there was another open atrium area in order to find an alternate route out. There were EMS services set up in that atrium who offered to take the disabled woman. Yet more shepherds! She was conflicted because she knew that she had slowed John and his boss down, but John told her, “You can stay with EMS or go with us but we’re leaving NOW.” The woman chose to go with the shepherds whom she had previously trusted (ultimately a life-saving decision for her), and down they went through a different stairwell to the ground floor.
They walked out on the Hudson River side, opposite from where the second Trade Tower had fallen. There was ankle-deep white ash everywhere and very few people. They placed the woman in a single waiting ambulance, and John’s boss gave his business card to the ambulance driver (nobody had bothered to ask each other’s names).
John and his boss tried to rest for a few minutes following their hour and fifteen minute descent. John was shaken by “whooshing” sounds which he discovered to his horror to be falling bodies and then debris from the beginning of the tower falling. They began running as fast as possible up the street for several blocks as the whole tower came down with the resulting “black cloud” roiling through the concrete canyon after them (literally through the valley of the shadow of death).
John said that just before the black cloud hit them; it was sucking back paper and debris into their faces as they ran. Finally, just before the black cloud caught up to them, John’s boss rolled under a car and John ducked behind a large van. When the black cloud hit, John said there was total sensory deprivation. He couldn’t see, couldn’t hear, couldn’t breathe, couldn’t close his mouth with debris choking open his mouth and forcing its way down his throat into his stomach. That’s when John prayed his third prayer when he believed that, after all they had been through, he wasn’t going to make it. “God, I’m Yours, please take me, just take me quick.” A prayer of submission.
But the black cloud finally passed, and he was still alive. John and his boss struggled several more blocks to where more EMS groups were set up. They made John and his boss sit down to rest, clawing out the debris from their mouths, and pouring saline solutions down their throats to make them throw up the debris in their stomachs.
After a brief rest they continued farther to find an electronics store run by his boss’ cousin to let the family know they were safe. On the way they passed a church, and John said they had to go in, totally shirtless, caked in mud, and bedraggled as they were. There were people scattered around the church, but they went straight to the altar and John lit a candle, and they both just slumped to the floor and just BAWLED! They just uncontrollably BAWLED, John thought for minutes. Sometime later, they finally got to a phone to let everyone know they were okay.
Since John told his whole story, I have had several opportunities to talk with him about his experiences, from his instant fame as a Hero to the deeper meanings of what happened in his life. He says he knows that God spared him, and he has been searching for all the deeper meanings even as he doesn’t want to keep reliving that day by continuously telling that story. With his permission I have preached several times using his story as part of the sermon.
I also asked John what he was thinking when he picked up the disabled woman. He said his Mother had asked him the same question. He said the truth was that he never even thought about it.
It continues to strike me what a deep spiritual meaning this story has for me, and hopefully you, even though we were not there.
The necessity for an abiding presence of a Good Shepherd
The necessity for us to serve as shepherds to others where needed
The intensity and purity and universality of the four prayers that John prayed
His first prayer at the 81st floor with a simple dependence on the Good Shepherd
His second prayer at the 6th floor when there was no way out of the valley, and an urgent request and total dependence on God to deliver him out
His third prayer when the black cloud hit, when he thought he was gone, which was a total submission to God
His fourth payer, (bet you wondered when that occurred, John asked me the same question) it was on the floor at the church altar when the act of uncontrolled bawling was the most natural prayer any of us could ever make -total immersion in joy - and relief - and oneness with God. It was literally a resurrection experience for John with a deliverance from the depths of Hell. It was a prayer of salvation!
I don’t know where you might find yourself in this story, or even if we can. I pray that I never find myself in John’s shoes with the situations he encountered. And that is my prayer for you; as well as for our military, our law enforcement officers, our firemen, and all those public servants on the front lines of protection.
However, I do believe that if anyone of faith were so confronted:
We would know God as our Good Shepherd
We would fear no evil
We would do good for others and not evil
We would be willing to lay down our life for a brother or sister
INDEED, EVEN AMONG US, HEROES WOULD EMERGE!
You know there are only three things in life which we can know .
One is that we are alive, we have experienced birth, we can think!
The second is that we will someday die
The third by faith knowledge is that God loves us
The truth is that all of life is what we do with the third of these things between the first and second. And we only have one shot at doing it.
Thank God for the John Cerqueira’s of life, and that is really you and me!
So Amen to him, Amen to you and Amen to me!!
