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| Our Ministers | Background | Selected Sermons: In Katrina’s Wake | ||||
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In Katrina’s Wake: To Be of Use The Reverend Dr. Becky Edmiston-Lange, September 4, 2005 Marge Piercy’s words never seemed more prescient. “To be of use.” To be of help. As the enormity of the tragedy caused by Katrina’s wrath sank deeper into consciousness as each day passed, that is what has been uppermost in our minds this week. The desire to submerge in the task, to do something usefully real to aid the survivors. As we—you, I, all of us—watched the pictures cross our television or computer screens over the last six days: —at first, the scenes of destruction too vast to comprehend: houses shattered; towering buildings displaced, swept aside like so many idle playthings: engineering marvels of bridges and roads reduced to piles of rubble: and all the stuff of human living—furniture, clothes, precious mementoes, bath fixtures—indiscriminately churned and mixed together, spit out and strewn across the landscape in a surreal nightmare potpourri; and, then, of course, the pictures of people: the drawn faces of survivors frozen by shock and grief; the haunting images of people still waiting to be rescued, waving hand made signs so stark in their simplicity, “Help us”; the streams of people walking, wading, blindly putting one foot in front of another, their eyes glazed over with fatigue and pure misery; the crowds of people huddled on overpasses seeking the only shelter available; people desperate for fresh drinking water surrounded by fetid, fouled, infested pools; people desperate for food, for themselves, and their children, for dry clothes, and shoes for cut feet, for diapers for their wet, wet babies; and, people crying out, “I don’t know what happened to my mother, my father, neighbor,” “I’m trying to get word to my sister, brother, daughter—if you’re listening, watching this—I’m alive,”; and, the constant, continuing lament, “I’ve lost everything, everything . . .” —how could we not want to be of use? And then, as the days wore on and rescue did not come, the images of people dying, dying(!), not from the effects of the hurricane but for lack of assistance—old people in wheelchairs, slumped over, with handwritten signs identifying next of kin, babies that could not be resuscitated, and the accompanying scenes of growing confusion and chaos, of looting and violence, and people with faces angry, distorted, by feelings of abandonment and betrayal, screaming “get us out of here!” As we watched as the days unfolded, the desire in us mounted, with a desperate quality that echoed the desperation we were witnessing—we have to do something—why isn’t more being done—oh, God, what can we do to help? This is Labor Day weekend and the sun, “unsullied from its tireless journey,” shines bright upon our Sabbath. Originally today’s worship service was intended to focus on the world of work. But what work could any of us think about today without the very word invoking the work in Katrina’s wake—the work that has been done during the past week—and the work that so cried out to be done—the work that somehow seemed to elude those in charge. How could we think of work this week without thinking of the immediate, pressing, tasks at hand: the work of rescue and salvage, of evacuation and triage; the work of assistance and aid, of feeding and housing evacuees; and, then, the monumental tasks that lie further ahead, of clearing and removing and disposing of debris; and, still further in the future, the work of restoring and rebuilding? There is so much work to do—so much tangible, physical labor to be done. And there is still other work that awaits for the survivors, the victims—labors of the mind and heart less easy to enumerate but real work nonetheless—of somehow finding the wherewithal and strength and courage to put lives back together—not that lives will ever be the same—but the work of somehow erecting some ramshackle, cobbled together version of routine, of survival, of going on, and, underneath and through it, all the work of mourning, of grieving all those dead and all that has been lost, not the least of which may be trust that the nation cares. There is work to do and we in this church will respond, in tangible, concrete ways—with financial assistance through our collection today and in future—financial assistance that should not be minimized—the cost of immediate succor and sustained support for victims and evacuees will be huge; and we will respond, today and no doubt in weeks to come, by collecting items of food and toiletries and clothes and school supplies; and we will respond by coordinating volunteer efforts—specific things that we can do, ranging from serving food, to helping to find jobs, to offering counseling to the bereaved and the bereft. There is tangible, concrete work we can do. But there are also labors of the mind and heart for us here also. There are those here today who have lost their homes and jobs. There may be members of our religious community who fear the loss of loved ones and friends or those who mourn with relatives and acquaintances the loss of homes and jobs. There are those here who have been on the front lines giving assistance and those organizing and coordinating the efforts of others. And even for those not so immediately affected, there has been and will be the work of dealing with our own internal response to this tragedy. All of us have experienced a roller coaster of emotions this week, all of us wrung out with vicarious sadness and sympathetic grief, anger and fear, with feverishly searching for comprehension, the overwhelming desire to respond, and, also, increasing frustration, rage even, at what has appeared, at best, incompetence and ill-preparedness and, at worst, callous disregard for those on the bottom rungs of society. Over and over we have been overcome by sadness and feelings of anger and helplessness so that we have had to turn away, if only for a few moments, and then we have felt the guilt or chagrin that we have normal lives to “turn away to,” while others are in such dire straits. We all have the work of processing, of grieving this event. And there is another labor of the mind and heart required of us—the work of maintaining and restoring our faith. For we, like the sun, have witnessed the best and worst of humanity this week. We have been reminded over and over of the sheer preciousness of life and of the gratitude incumbent upon the human soul for this great gift, as we have heard again and again the testimony of countless survivors—those who having lost everything, save the gift of life, have ceaselessly sounded the refrain, “I am just grateful to be alive,” “as long as I have my life and my family I feel blessed.” And we have witnessed, too, heroic, selfless rescue efforts and random acts of kindness stunning in their generosity, and enormous outpourings of aid and sympathy from around this sun-fed planet and within ourselves. But we have been witness, as well, to the dark side of human nature, to selfishness and greed, wanton violence and the primitive scrabble for survival. And so we have the work of processing this also and of finding our way back to faith in our better natures. And so we must become conversant with our own emotions, our own limits, must project ourselves into others’’ skins—ask ourselves, to what measures would I be reduced if I were in such desperate and despairing straits, if I were suddenly stripped of all the moorings that give shape and purposefulness to human living, if suddenly I had lost everything and everyone I loved and was hungry and tired and thirsty beyond measure—and what if I, for years before even this, had lived frightfully close to the bone and so had a reservoir of unmet need and desire? Such spiritual work is necessary—not to condone or justify, but to aid in human understanding, to help us be less quick to judge and condemn, to help us to examine our unconscious prejudices and critiques the stereotypes perpetuated by our society, and, most importantly, to find the resolve to, no matter what, act from our best dreams for humanity’s future and find and build the ways to nurture and sustain that better nature in ourselves and others. There is also, in the wake of Katrina, the ongoing work of our religious community—the things we have always been and will continue to be about. For there are issues of justice and equity, of racism and classism here. So many of those left behind are black. So many of those worst affected were and are the infirm, the elderly, the poor; those who had so little to begin with, who lacked the resources and the sheer physical ability to leave. There are also issues here about our, humanity’s, relation to the earth, that we as a species have denied for too long our fragile vulnerability and dependence upon the forces of nature—that we must realize that heedless destruction of natural barriers and wetlands, that profligate building so close to the shore has consequences—that we must learn to build and plan as if we will be here for a long time yet. And there are, as always, issues of our human interdependence and of finding the ways to be of use to one another not just in times of tragedy and disaster, not just in our own regions, but in all times and places. And that is work that will never be finished for there will always be places on this green globe that circumnavigates the sun where the life-giving rays of that precious star fall on waste and despair. There is so much work to be done—and so we begin here—with our special collection and with our concrete efforts of assistance, yes, of course—but also with this time now of sharing as a congregation. For we need to process, to share with one another what we have witnessed in this past week. It has been overwhelming in so many ways and we need this sacred space and time to speak what is uppermost in our hearts and minds this day. |
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