When Words Fail, Especially My Words

The scenes in New Orleans are harrowing. What else can be said? The sorrow that region faces, and that which all America faces, is hard to calculate. Shall we turn this moment into a lecture on economics or oil-dependence? Shall we turn this tragedy into a symposium on global warming, blaming industrialists for meterological woes? Or shall we turn this into a sermon on the carnality of the French Quarter, or the allegedly perverse foreign policy of Republicans? Shall we pointificate on C-Span and Air America about causes we cannot see, and ignore the effects that stare us in the face?

I brace myself for the idiocy.

Some ponderings:

• As the New Orleans story unfolds, and the economy rocks back on its heels, other stories will rapidly disappear from view. For example, Cindy Sheehan is over: her fifteen minutes–prolonged as they were in slow motion–are gone. Perhaps I am overstating this, but Hurricane Katrina is a meteorological 9/11 (in scale and effect alone, not causation). My sense is that this is going to get worse by the minute. Damage from water, septage, molds: the list goes on. Please realize that there is a skyscraper at New York's Ground Zero that still has a gaping hole in it. Mold has ruined the building, and the structure is most likely doomed. Can you imagine a whole city with water in it for weeks? The news focus is definitely going to shift.
• Sorrow among sorrows: How sad to read people blaming God; or perceiving Katrina as God's wrath; or perceiving Katrina as payback by Mother Earth for humanity's maltreatment of the planet. Why is this sad? Because it doesn't help. If I have a tumor in my brain, how does it help me to know that God put it there? How does it help to learn that a tumor is punishment? There is only one redemptive aspect to such a lesson, and that is to draw me toward repentance; toward remembering God. OK. I buy that. But it does not help me with the tumor; the tumor needs to be addressed. "God put it there," does not help me get rid of it. Nor does telling me that I have a tumor because I abused my body; that this is nature's way of punishing me. Such commentary is completely unhelpful, and there is nothing redemptive about it. The plain fact is that a tumor needs to be addressed. Let's deal with it–now. Discussing causes while one's brain dies, or wondering about causes while a city burns, is not helpful unless, and here's the rub, discovering the cause removes the tumor, or puts out the fire. But who has seen such a thing with tumors? If I were to stop abusing my body, will the tumor go away? If I admit God caused it in retribution of bad behavior, will it disappear? If I find the cause of an inferno is a leaking gas line, will plugging the line repair buildings already ablaze? If New Orleans and America repent of all their sins right now; if all of America dropped on its knees and declared that God is King and we his grateful servants, does anyone think that, even if there is such a God, our repentance would immediately cause the streets of New Orleans to dry, and the buildings and lives be restored? And, if we were to stop polluting the atmosphere and the earth right this second, will no one be homeless anywhere, no longer displaced by catastrophes?
  
• I am not opposed to looking at the divine when studying problems. I am not opposed to looking at everything–science, politics, economics, theology, sociology, psychology–in determining causality or solutions. What I am opposed to is blaming some people while not blaming others. In short–and here is the Christian doctrine of original sin raising its head–we are all to blame. But even admitting this does nothing other than humble us. But, if we are all to blame, what do we do next? Or are only some to blame? If that's the case, then truly there is a dark irony. For those who want to blame others and not themselves are usually the ones who find the doctrine of original sin too malicious, too damning of all the greatness of humanity. But what is more malicious than blaming only some people for the brokenness of the planet and its inhabitants?
• Right this second, the remnants of Katrina are darkening the skies outside my window. There are bands of rain, swirling winds, and a tropical feel to the air. The energy outside is wonderful, beautiful, stunning. But it is also dangerous. Do I not realize that living in all this power and beauty and mystery is a risk? Did I not know that last week? last year? when I was a child taking my first steps? Do I really want science and government and guns and God to remove all the risk of living; to spare me of grief and tragedy? Do I want to live in a world where Category V hurricanes are rendered impotent; or can never pose a threat to anything?
  
• If God sends bad weather as punishment, does God send good weather as a blessing? If so, then why are not the blogs jammed with discussions and speculations about God's goodness in granting us long sunny days, perfectly temperate? And if the earth punishes us for spilling oil in Alaska, or burning fossil fuels in Cambridge, does she bless us with clear sunny days as well? If so, why? And why are there no symposiums discussing how nature BLESSES us daily with abundant sunshine, food, and recreation? Why only symposiums on the causes of Earth's wrath?
  

These musings are not much in the wake of Katrina. They are not much in the wake of even a beautiful sunset or sipping a glass of chilled Riesling with friends or playing with puppies. Life is a privilege, lest we forget. Too often we are cocksure in our convictions that the government and the very cosmos owe us something, something we believe we are entitled to by rights. But it is not a right to breathe. It is a privilege. And the second you reduce any of life's gifts to a right, you suck the life out of living, and you destroy life's giftedness. If you are entitled to a gift on your birthday, how is it a gift? Reducing life to a series of guarantees that all your creature comforts and desires will be protected and fulfilled, is to destroy the foundations of joy. For joy must always come as a surprise. As a gift. You do not deserve or earn joy. It just comes, handed out in the generosity which is always grace.

Blessings to you, New Orleans, Biloxi, and surrounding towns.

Contratimes

©Bill Gnade 2005/Contratimes - All Rights Reserved