Hurrican Katrina @ MindSay 
hurricane
Saturday, June 23, 2007
-3am. We all get on the bus and start driving. Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, and finally New Orleans at about 1:30/45 pm that afternoon. We drove through a time change so we got there at just under 12 hours (including food and bathroom stops)
-We drove to the Restoration Embassy (church) where we would be staying for the week. It's in a "bad" neighborhood. And I don't want to give off the wrong impression. It looked bad. But we didn't know about anything just yet.
-We speak to David Shelton, the "Bishop" of the church. He's a funny 87 year old man who loves life and loves people. For lunch, he recommends to us the restaurant Cannon's.
-We then drove up a side street into the Garden District (high income homes) and onto St. Charles. We arrive at Cannon's.
-At the restaurant, I had a bowl of duck and andouille gumbo. I then finished Delmas' popcorn shrimp, Drue's blackened redfish po' boy, and ate a piece of bread pudding. Needless to say, I could not walk correctly for the rest of the day.
-Back at the Restoration church, we unpacked and got situated. We went and ate dinner (spaghetti, but I was so full from lunch I didn't have any) and then worshiped. When we got back, the last group to arrive (from Hilltown Baptist in Philadelphia) showed up in the room as we were getting ready for bed. I met most of the people from the guys in the group (without my glasses though, so I didn't know who I was meeting).
Sunday, June 24, 2007
-We got up early and sat down with our project leader Denny who shared with us the dress code once more in case we didn't read through it the first time (all while sitting with her legs apart in a skirt. blegh).
-Church was fun. Small attendance without us there to bulk up the pews. At the end, we learned that communion would be served. Denny then made her first stupid move (out of countless amounts during the week) by telling us "we will not be taking communion." Well... we are Episcopalians. We're TAKING communion. We do it every week. Manischewitz wine with Matza. A true communion.
-After church, we toured the flooded areas of New Orleans. Went to Lakeview to see the waterlines from up to 10 feet of flooding. Went to the lower 9th ward where 2 levees breached and homes were trashed and eventually demolished.
-Dinner, worship
Monday, June 25, 2007
-After getting up and having a typical camp-style breakfast (bagel, coffee) we headed out to the organization called Beacon of Hope.
-There, we were told that we needed to split our group into 3 and 3. 3 of us went to help clean the yard of an elderly lady who was trying to sell it, but could not until the yard was neat. Lots of pulling weeds and raking up debris. The other 3 went and helped an older couple with their yard as well, but that's their story.
-We get back to the Knights of Columbus center where we ate lunch. After lunch, we went back to the Restoration Center to get our VBS supplies together. We would be leading a VBS for 3 hours with kids from the surrounding neighborhood.
-Rain came down and lightning cracked all over the sky. We were rained out and a little depressed that we wouldn't be playing with the kids.
-Kellie than called Cam (the old youth pastor at my church who now lives in New Orleans and runs the Chapel in Touro, one of the few hospitals that did not flood during Katrina) and let her know that we had a couple hours to spare.
-Cam was in a meeting. We decided to go and prayerwalk the hospital anyways. Just then, Kellie got a call from Cam letting her know that Cam's meeting was cancelled and she had the exact amount of time we had to show us the hospital (definitely a "God moment")
-Prayerwalked the entire hospital, every floor.
-Came back to Restoration
-Ate dinner, worshiped, went to bed
Tuesday, June 26, 2007
-Woke up in the morning, ate breakfast
-We were informed we would be working at a man named Mark's house (he's a contractor, not actually his house).
-Got there and met a man named Sharkey (once a government mercenary, fought in 'Nam, has killed several people, now a devout Christian with nothing but a rented apartment, a bucket of tools, and a green van)
-He told us we would be doing the hardest job out of all the jobs on the house so far. We would be drywalling a 10 1/2 foot ceiling.
-We got to work. Each section got harder and harder.
-We get to the last piece and decide to lower the scaffolding a foot so we wouldn't have to bend over to put up the drywall. Long story short, the wooden platform (around 60 lbs.) fell directly on Delmas' big toe. We were down one man
-After getting Delmas back to the Restoration center to put his toe on ice, we finished the last piece.
-The whole job took about 4.5/5 hours
-We then drove to Cold Stone Creamery and got ice cream
-We get back to Restoration and shower, and then go back to Knights of Columbus to eat dinner and worship
-We go to bed afterwards
Wednesday, June 27, 2007
-Wake up, eat breakfast
-We are informed that we have prayerwalking in the morning, lunch, and then ATL in the afternoon (Ask The Lord. It is what it sounds like. We just pray about what we should do, and then we do what we feel most called to do)
-We go to a pretty low-income neighborhood off of St. Charles and start prayerwalking.
-We prayerwalk for about an hour and a half and feel like we've done very little. We've just prayed over areas but no people. Delmas (who somehow made it walking with us for that long with a busted toe) went back to the van to rest. After we drop off Delmas, we start prayerwalking again. We arrive at a section where there was a cross road. We were facing the corner of a building and had either left or right as a direction to walk in. We pray to God and ask Him to show us where to go. Nicole suddenly speaks up about a verse she remembered from the morning when we woke up. It came from John Ch. 3 (can't remember what verse) and basically says that the Spirit is in the wind. She proposes that we follow the wind. Well, earlier, we had passed a lady in a grey track outfit 2 times and had just said "Hey! How ya doin?" We started following the wind to the right and the wind literally pushes right into her. We all get to talking with her and ask her if we could pray for her about anything. She says that would be great and we start praying. At the end of the prayer, she was in tears and thanked us for praying with her. "I really needed that."
-We keep walking and we end up at a house under construction. Two of the workers were taking a break. I can only remember that one of their names is Troy. We started praying with them and Kellie finished the prayer after a couple of minutes. Before we could break apart our prayer circle, Troy asked if he could say a prayer. It turns out that, for some reason, he was really missing his mother that day (who had died in '79). We all prayed for him and his mother and we were all in tears afterwards. We said goodbye to both of them and started walking again.
-We spot a "house" that had no walls on the inside, no windows, and no roof. They were literally tearing the house apart only to rebuild it. We see a woman walking out of the house and we stop her and ask if she's the owner. She says yes, and we ask if we could pray with her. She says "Of course" and we begin praying. After our prayer she tells us "Thank you" and we walk back to Delmas to tell him about our success.
-When we got 10 mins away from Delmas, he calls us and tells us to hurry back, because in 10 mins they would be opening a church that was located at doorstep he happened to be sitting on.
-When we got there, Delmas heard our story and then told us that he had met more people than us just by sitting on the stoop of the church (that he didn't know was a church until he was told so by the pastor). We both had great success with the prayerwalks.
-We decide to celebrate and skip eating our sloppy sandwiches (PBJ, Ham and cheese, turkey and cheese) and went to a place called Igor's and we all got Po' Boys. I had an oyster Po' Boy that was out of this world (mostly because of the fact that we were all very hungry). We hurried back to Restoration before we did our ATL.
-Once we got there, we all sat in the van and prayed about what we should do. I kept thinking about "children." Kellie thought of the word "garbage." Dru said "blood donations." Nicole said "9th ward." But Heather hit the spot and said "Beacon of Hope."
-We head over to Beacon of Hope to just ask if they needed anything done. It turns out that they did. Kellie and Delmas ended up cleaning (and eventually taking out garbage). Heather, Dru, Nicole, and myself grabbed welcome-home-baskets and drove down Argonne Blvd. to give to residents who had just come back to their homes (which all had at least 8 feet of water inside).
-The first house we stopped at was an elderly lady with a BEAUTIFUL home. She mentioned that the ceiling had actually caved in from the water and it was completely gutted at one point. You could not tell. We took her information in case she needed any yardwork to be done by volunteers from Beacon of Hope and said our farewells just as her grandson came home from a friend's house.
continued soon.....
You want proof?
- Hurricane Katrina and Rita
- The Guatemala landslide areas considered mass graves
- The 7.6!!! quake to hit Asia
Maybe it just feels like the world has gone mad because so many of these disasters have happened in close proximity to each other, but you have to admit the forces of nature have been showing just how much control they have over our lives. Could we have been better prepared for disasters like these? Undoubtedly, but this planet is a volatile violent place just by itself without the rest of us running around. I look at the pictures of the devastation and the rescuers holding these screaming children, and I swear it breaks my heart.
Everyone can do something. If you're of the mind, please pray for all the victims and their families. Every little bit helps.
A few weeks back people were running around as is the sky had fallen.
There was too much talk on Mindsay and around the country about Hurricane Katrina being worse than September 11th.
There were mentions of
10,000 or more dead.
Rapes & murders...
Racism.
Death and mayhem at the SuperDome
The Mayor of New Orleans was doing his best chicken Little.
The Press going ballistic...and the rest of us following suit.
So far, here's the numbers:
Still less than 1000 dead for all the states hit by Katrina AND Rita combined.
No rapes or murders at the SuperDome. 6 people died there but 4 were natural causes, 1 was a suicide, and
there was 1 overdose.
At the Convention Center there was 1 murder.
To put it another way...there were 4 murders discovered in the city after Katrina making it a "typical" week for the city of New Orleans.
All that speculation was wrong.
The Veneer of civilization
How thin is law and order, the painting of civilization upon our skins. The first slip of power, a misstep or faltering of society's coercive ability, and the veneer begins peeling off. The wolves rush out of the dark forests and begin their bloody feasts. The barbarian hordes at the gates of the city begin overwhelming the walls of defense. Meet primal man; might makes right, and the vision of human history past and present. This is as things have been throughout the existence of our dominion. This is truth. We are beasts, predators or prey.
Man's rule. The Law of the Claw. Lex Talonis.
It is 'us' who are the anathema of the natural order. Our present age and culture. Our politik of democracy. We have been deluded by the comparative peace and safety of the past several centuries, believing mankind to be something he is not. We live and learn within a false construct of enlightened design; society based on equality and consideration. This is not what is in our hearts, bred in our genes by our forefathers long gone. We are the product of a thousand generations of victors, those who stood over the bleeding bodies of their foes. Within us is the slayer, the reaver, the oppressor.
Dwell on the Antebellum South and the slavery of a people. Count the innocent at Wounded Knee. Remember Hitler's Master Plan, box cars and gas chambers. Contemplate 50,000,000 silenced voices and Stalin's 'purge' of Soviet Russia. Wonder at Pol Pot and the Killing Fields heaped high with bleached bones. Untold millions dead. Refresh your memory that it was only ten years ago in Rwanda and the slaughter of the Tutsis by the Hutus left a million dead. Understand that the genocide in Bosnia and Sarejevo has been going on for centuries, and is still going on. Think about Darfur, at this moment, more death and misery than ten New Orleans. Don't forget the destruction and 'collateral damage' of the people of Iraq. Death, oppression, misery. And yes, pillagers and rapists in the wake of Hurricane Katrina. Mankind's practice of his nature.
These are not anomalies but the way of human dominion. We have not evolved as a species, being transformed into something more than the base animal we are. We have only changed our form as a society, painting our surface and hiding the beast within. We are primitive man dressed in fine apparel. Neanderthals in evening wear.
Ghengis Kahn and the Golden Horde slaying every living creature in their path. Mountains of skulls in the wake of Tamerlane the Great. The sacking of cities and putting every man, woman, and child to the sword. Empire usurping empire. Race annihilating race. Civilization destroyers. That is who we are at our core. Thus is the nature of the world and mankind's common practices. Mankind without a mask. Destruction and death.
It only takes a few wolves to begin the slaughter of the sheep. The ratio of predator to prey is extreme, hundreds to one, but that is not an obstacle. It is the natural order. Evolution, if you will or want. You could place one wolf among a thousand sheep, and all you've done is increase the prey for the predator. It is the way it has always been and the way it is. Boasting and bravado does not change the wool of the lamb, nor do sly words and posturing change the spots on the leopard. You know what you are. We all know what we are, who we are, in our heart of hearts.
Predator and their prey. Oppressor and oppressed. Our natural choices...
But there is more, I know there is. I have seen it. I have felt it. There is hope. Hope.
There is something else in the Blackness. It is the spark of the Divine within us. The torch of reason in the darkness of night, and the ember of compassion in the coldness of our souls. The actuality and not just the knowledge. We must have more than knowledge, we must have endeavor. But it is rare in practice. It is against our nature. We resist the Divine.
But from such sparks come fires, and out of such fires come heroes. The Hero possesses the spark of the Divine, and holds the torch high in the darkness, giving light that others may see where to step. The Hero takes up the standard, and leads the way. The Hero acts with courage, rescuing those who cannot rescue their own self. The Hero wields the sword with compassion, and mercy, and wisdom.
So where are the heroes? Where are the great leaders and protectors who will stand against the tide of all that is bestial in our world? I do not know. We are a society bereft of The Good King. We are a world waiting for The Hero.
But I have seen some everyday heroes, lately. Those that have lifted their feet high of the mire of apathy and selfishness, planting their boots solidly on firm ground, and giving a hand to those who have fallen face-down in the muck.
They are among us. Folks like greeneggsandham, causticveracity, Hester, squidbrainiac , and laughwithme. There are more, I'm sure, these are but a few. Giving time, giving money, giving blood. Housing the homeless. Doing what one can with what one has, and making a difference. The patrician's wealth and the widow's mite.
Look around you. It is the time and place for great things. Now is the opportunity to step out and become something greater than what is common. Now is the time for heroics - don't miss your chance. Take up the standard. Point the way. Wield the sword against the gibbering hordes.
It is in lifting others from the pit, in protecting the fallen, in standing for the oppressed, that we participate in the Divine. When we stand at the forefront, amidst the hail of stones and arrows, pointing the way to righteousness and justice, we represent the Divine. It is when we risk our lives without reward or gain, when we live for others without recompense, that we walk into the heroic path of Divinity. It is in the doing that we transcend our nature. In step with the Divine. Becoming Heroes.
However, we must know this: It is on a mound of fallen heroes and martyrs that we stand above the darkness that is the natural order of man's way. We stand upon the backs of all who have fought and fallen before us. Truthfully, we are only a corpse above The Law of the Claw. The whole of human history testifies to the uniqueness of our most fortuitous heighth. We swing the sword of enlightenment with but a margin of advantage over our foes. Standing precariously upon the back of a fallen Hero. It is only by the practice of the heroic, the endeavors of heroes and protectors, that we will remain.
The world is a dark and bloody field, and mankind is a beast.
But there is hope, if we remain steadfast, and persevere in fight. If we be heroes.
There is Hope.
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