Well, well, well…Look who’s back in the saddle! I want to thank all of you who take the time to read the Wednesday Word for understanding my need for a pause to recharge my creative juices.
I was on vacation this past week and did a sort of whirlwind tour through Texas and Louisiana. I went down to New Braunfels to visit my brother and his wife. We don’t get to see each other often, so it was very good to catch up with them. Then I drove to Houston for a day and a night visit. From Houston I drove on to New Orleans to visit with my best friend Hadley. Always a great time visiting him and enjoying the sights, sounds and food of the Crescent City.
No doubt you saw in the news and other sources this was the 20th anniversary of Hurricane Katrina devastating the Gulf coast, and New Orleans in particular. It was a somber remembrance of that time. I was serving at St. Luke “Community” United Methodist Church as the Outreach Pastor. Being on the eastern side of the Metroplex, we were one of the first stops for those who had evacuated from the storm. It was a blur of activity that amazes me still to this day. The church sprang into action and set up a world-class relief center that served several thousand evacuees. We helped them with food, clothing, haircuts, trauma counseling, helping to find apartments and furnishing them. It was a tremendous effort on the part of all the volunteers. Once the flood waters receded, we put together a mission team of some 55 persons to travel to New Orleans and assist in the recovery. We built beds for other volunteers who would come. We cleaned, and painted, and did other various tasks to assist those on the ground. Its truly a time I will never forget.
While I was in New Orleans this past week, Hadley took me by the Katrina memorial. Its on the eastern side of the city in what was a charity cemetery. You couldn’t necessarily tell it from the ground level, but from a bird’s eye view, the memorial is in the symbol of a hurricane.
There are long blocks of black granite with no writing whatsoever on them. These long blocks contain the cremains of some 1200 people who perished in the storm. The stark thing about this is, there are no names because no one claimed these victim’s bodies. No one knows their identity.
I want us to think about that for a minute. 1200 people no one looked for, inquired about, or even were missed. That’s staggering my friends. How many people are alone in this world with no one to think about them or miss them? How many people in this world leave this place and are not missed or mourned?
Who cries for the unwanted, the unloved, and those who no one cares about?
In the 31st chapter of Deuteronomy we read about when Moses was telling the people that he is no longer able to lead them. His time has come to depart this earth and they will cross over to the promised land with Joshua. We know that when Moses died the whole nation mourned his passing. Moses tells the Hebrew children they need to remember that God is with them. “God will not fail them, nor forsake them.”
I choose to believe that promise extended to the New Orleanians who perished in Katrina. They didn’t die alone, God was with them. The memorial serves as a reminder to all of us to care for one another. We are to let God’s presence shine through what we do and say.
The resilience of the people of New Orleans is phenomenal. I had a wonderful experience while in New Orleans. I found the people to be warm and welcoming as they have always been. They have pieced their recovery back with bits and pieces. I know its been 20 years since the event, and yet their economy is one of the most fragile among U.S. cities to date. There are people working two and three jobs to make ends meet. They still need our prayers, our care, our concern and for us to stand with them and not leave them or forsake them. Like the 1200 nameless souls, God is with them, and we are with them. Lets do all we can to honor the memory of those who were forgotten by not forgetting those who continue to struggle.
Your companion on the Way,
Pastor Tom