I have been able to contact more cousins today, and my entire extended family is accounted for except for two cousins, one of whom lived in coastal Mississippi. We are still hoping to hear through our family network about this cousin, her husband, and her son and his family. Our sisters from Metairie are being hosted by a generous soul in Baton Rouge. They even have electricity and hot water.
Last night, completely unable to sleep, I realized that I have to quit watching TV. It is too traumatic. Tomorrow, God willing, I will meet another New Orleanian in exile, a Claretian, for coffee. It will be a chance to cry with someone who understands this kind of unexpected grief. Who ever expected to grieve for a lost city? I guess the ancient Israelites understood that very well.
The chaos in the city is quite unsettling. The sinful part of me wants to use violence against violence. Not exactly "Christ lives in me," is it? But today's Gospel was so appropos: "Leave me, Lord, for I am a sinful human being." As I reflected on the scene, I noticed that Peter's confession of guilt and responsibility, his recognition of his state, came after he had had an experience of overwhelming goodness and generosity, not castigation or intimidation. This is how Jesus effects a conversion. I need to pray for God's grace to touch those people whose lives are so marred that their only conscious (actually, unconscious) reaction to anything is destructiveness. Many of those people, of course, never had even the luxury of learning the first lesson about delayed gratification. Even though a catastrophe like this puts everyone more or less back to zero, the same people who were "haves" before are likely to rebuild and resume some replica of their former lives, while the former "have nots" will still not have the wherewithall to rebuild what they never built in the first place. When you live from day to day, there is nothing to put aside for a tomorrow. So I am praying that somehow while the poorest of the poor are sheltered in Houston, there will be a chance for the adults also to go to school to learn living skills like budgeting and planning and thinking in terms of life beyond the moment.
I am grateful that my family is safe. My sister is the only one in the immediate family who remains in the city, at her hospital post. Pray for her. A cousin and uncle remain on high ground in Metairie--this we know only from a text message received by yet another cousin in Michigan: "Buddy OK." Thank heavens for communications technology (when it works). Mom and Dad's hosts, my brother's in-laws, are more than generous. And my niece Erin was picked up in Baton Rouge last night, is with Mom and Dad now, waiting for her Dad to drive up from Mississippi to reunite her with her brother and sister.
Please keep up the prayers.
2 comments:
From another New Orleans native - starting from age 3. After being born along the Mississippi in Florissant, MO my parents and I moved to Lafayette, LA and soon we found ourselves surround by the humid lore of Metairie outside of New Orleans. Always along side of the Mississippi.
What does it mean to miss New Orleans? Something in me knows that New Orleans is a corrective for the un-fun places in the United States. For those who take themselves too seriously. This is an incarnational city - Jesus is in the flesh and he is God. You can feel and taste that truth in New Orleans.
Somewhere inside I know that it is a place where sin and grace abound - because that is the equation Paul said happens - The grace that has abounded has touched more than the city beneath the sea. This grace is the future of the South - New Orleans is the fertile ground of that tree branching out to share the deep faith of a city that care forgot but that God loves with special care.
How do I know? There is going to be an eternal banquet and the recipes are from New Orleans. They are being cooked up there for the big one. How else do I know? I have walked those steets as a young teen - my cross bought at St Paul's bookcenter falling onto Canal Street - my life changing because I saw the Cross shining on those now flooded streets calling me to share it beyond my favorite city with the world. How do I know? I walked those same streets as an evangelizer and met people along the backroads - ate and drank with them - sang and prayed with them - in ballrooms and in kitchens, in ships that pulled up along the levee and in the storage where coffee beans were spilled out.
It has been New Orleans that grew my faith. It is New Orleans that just poured her poor and vulnerable out onto the streets - and now the world sees what has been hidden in every major city - our brothers and sisters who have been calling out to us way before the Hurricane hit.
Now we know. New Orleans has shown herself to the world. New Orleans is her people and they are me. The waters are baptising her again. The sins are washing away. May her people go out as missionaries in diaspera only to return later rejoicing in a new New Orleans - rebuilt, concerned, full of care and still wafting music across the rest of the land as a gentle symbol of God's grace and blessing for the world.
It cannot be replaced. It is history, it is people, it is culture, it is food, it is art and literature. Yet it can be redeemed. It is on the cusp of redemption - the sorrow and the humility required are giving pause to the big easy. Let us all pause and give praise for the story that is New Orleans. Let us convert inside - show our vulnerabilty, our weakness and our fear and hand it all over to the One who redeems.
"Vast floods cannot quench love, nor rivers drown it." Song of Songs 8:7
Wow, S. Margaret, thank you! I spent but only a few days in New Orleans a few years ago, but I am amazed how much I recognize on the tv news reports ... New Orleans gets inside one very quickly, and I am glad I got to see it with my own eyes and feel it with my own heart. Yet I know that my feelings of loss are but a blink of those, like you and S. Anne, for whom New Orleans is home in more ways than one ...
Peace,
Lisa
cullensdaughter@aol.com
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