|
It’s September now. We hear talking heads on TV using phrases like “Never before in the history of our country”, and “a disaster of Biblical proportions”, to describe the aftermath of hurricane Katrina. I have always loved this time of year, but I am starting to wonder. Almost four years ago, we heard similar kinds of phrases as we watched the devastation of September 11.
Katrina is not the same thing. Her destruction is spread across three states. Katrina was a storm. Storms come every year, but not like this one. Her location, combined with her power, have turned untold lives upside down.
I have two images in my mind from watching the news while waiting for hurricane Katrina to hit. You probably can recall them as well. There is that shot of the interstate with all the cars heading away from New Orleans. The other image is of people lining up to go into the Superdome.
I did not think much about it at first, but then I realized what the threat of impending disaster had done. Everyone who could leave New Orleans was leaving New Orleans. Those who lacked the means to leave went to the Superdome.
In the early stages of the news coverage, the reality of the situation just was not registering with me. Those people were going to the Superdome because they either had no place to go or no way to get to some other place. The logical, sensible thing to do would have been to leave the vicinity. But they were going to the Superdome.
Even if you did not have family living somewhere else, why not drive an hour or two up the road and get a motel room for the night. Why not go somewhere — anywhere else — while there was still time. I don’t care how big or well built the Superdome is, it is not the place I want to be with a (then) category five hurricane on the way.
Slowly, I began to realize that the people going into the Superdome were not ill-advised thrill seekers. They just did not have any better alternatives. The people who could leave did. The people who could not got left behind.
Most of the ones that got left behind are the usual ones that get left behind — namely, the poor. It is easy to overlook them most of the time. But with Katrina on the way, cameras were everywhere. You could not miss them.
Times of crisis often help us to see things that we would not see otherwise. Our nation’s poverty rate rose in 2004 for the fourth straight year. The number of Americans below the poverty line increased by 1.1 million, to 37 million people — about 13 percent of our population.
Katrina was no respecter of persons. She wreaked havoc on everyone more or less equally. In time, New Orleans and the other cities hit by this storm will rebuild. But right now, there are thousands of people with no place to go. Some have moved to the Astrodome in Texas. I received word yesterday that four families may be coming to the Family Life Center at First Baptist, Murfreesboro.
What do we do in the face of such devastation? The Bible tells us in Deuteronomy 15:7-8 —
If there is among you a poor man of your brethren, within any of the gates in your land which the Lord your God is giving you, you shall not harden your heart nor shut your hand from your poor brother, but you shall open your hand wide to him and willingly lend him sufficient for his need, whatever he needs.
Joy and peace,
Ed
|
