On Katrina

Pouring through internet reports of the devastating results from Hurricane Katrina, I felt the same dreadful anxiety I felt after the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.

I remember sitting numbly in front of the TV watching the plane fly into the second tower over and over and over again. Today, I found myself repeatedly clicking on links to the articles about levee breaks and looting and loss of life. This afternoon, in the midst of my storm clean-up (final toll: five Radio Flyer wagonloads of leaves and sticks), I put it all together. I'm waiting on it to sink in: this really happened.

Thankfully, the endless, mindless, speculation of TV talking heads is not an option for me this time. I don't know what I would do if tempted with that. I guess I would be numb in my chair, remote control in hand, watching the same looping video over and over. Instead, I'm searching out new sources of information on the web.

As with most tragedies, stories of heroism and sacrifice abound. But there have been many discouraging images from this tragedy. Among them:

• the Mississippi family forced into the attic by storm surge who had to tie their five-year-old to the rafters to keep from losing her. When asked why they didn't evacuate, the father replied that the local shelter wouldn't let them enter with their dogs, so they went back home.
• the New Orleans boat captain who left the Superdome rather than parting with his stash of beer and cigarettes. He and his sea-worthy girlfriend decided to ride out the storm on his boat near Slidell. His family awaits contact from him.
• the looters and car-jackers who are apparently running amok in New Orleans. Maybe more disturbing is one sociologist's explanation that this is a normal response to an oppressive society (i.e. "it's not their fault").
• Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.'s conviction that Mississippi governor Haley Barbour is responsible for the hurricane. Barbour, former chairman of the Republican National Committee, was, according to Kennedy, instrumental in convincing President Bush to ignore the Kyoto Protocol, which caused the global warming that fueled the massive storm.
• President Bush's offer of condolence and concern from 2500 feet above sea level in a pimped-out jumbo jet.
  

Sadly, tragedies like Hurricane Katrina emphasize the utter fallen-ness that we live under. People receive plenty of warning that they refuse to heed, they hang on to minutiae while risking, and often losing, inestimable treasures, they look for someone to blame, they act less like their creator and more like creatures that they are superior to, they try to stay as high above suffering and tragedy as they can, and, unfortunately, they reap what they sow.

As one of my pastor friends often prays, "Forgive me, Father, for were I in the crowd that day, I, too, would have cried for the release of Barabbas."

God, help us all, but especially your thirsty creatures in the chaos that is New Orleans and the Mississippi Gulf Coast.