Sometimes capturing a moment in time isn't easily done. Its hard to remember things when they just affected you. I remember Sept 11th, OJ, I vaguely remember the challenger, and usually I can remember times of my life based on music. Sometimes life can be like those long boring backseat rides when you were a kid. You know it feels like its a commercial, you just stared out the window, maybe the song you hear is something mellow and acoustic from Paul Simon as you slobber on the window hoping your sibling doesn't cross their line.
Just like any other weekend in life, and just like any other hurricane, Katrina came right up the Gulf Coast and ruined land, lives and so much more. We all watched in horror as it seemed we were watching a newscast from Rwanda or something. We watched people being pulled out of their roof's as the water level raised up into their attics. We saw news stories of people dying while they waited on overpasses, people throwing themselves over the balcony at the Superdome because they couldn't take the smell any longer. I regularly read a column on Monday Mornings and the columnist told the story of a guy who he sat next to on a plane that was a New Orleans police officer who was given a month leave after watching his partner pull out his gun and shoot himself in the head because he couldn't take the people suffering around him any longer.
I think we all cried watching people hurt like that. We watched Americans hurt on CNN, and our big powerful country was brought to its knees by an amazing force of nature. There I was slobbering on the window of the car of life, and from the front seat, I got asked to drive. Several guys that I know had decided to go down and try to help in whatever manner they could. I decided to go and for the first time in my life, I think I got to be unselfish for what seemed like such a short period of time. We went as far south as Hattiesburg, Mississippi but got to help clean and pass out goods to shelters in Clark County including Meridian, Jonestown, Pachula and a couple of other small communities in the county.
It's interesting when you go somewhere that basic human amenities have been taken away. The community really bands together and everyone drops their ego just to help. That's not to say that tensions to flare up because that can certainly happen when you wait in line for gas for two hours, or when people feel you are cheating them, or when you feel like people are cheating the goodwill of others. You basically trust in the idea of all people need help, and if you are alive and able you should be helping.
We got to cut down trees on several older women's homes and clean up their yards. It wasn't wading through water to pull people out of their homes, but the real hero work was done by the people in those communities. They had already pulled down so many trees and freed so many from their collapsing homes. There was very little glory to what we did, our work was like a drop of water in the ocean, but those people needed help and we were there trying. That is a lot better to me than watching life pass by.
As I lived through some of that I couldn't help but think about our country as in pyramid of Maslow's hierarchy of needs. Basically the pyramid works bottom up and the theory says that you are unable to achive the next level up without first achieving the level directly under. We start with Physiological needs, then Safety needs, Belongingness and Love needs, as well as Esteem Needs. It is here that that the core of who we are takes shape because these needs allow us to think outside our own small self. One obviously can move past these needs and into understanding, Aesthetic, Self-actualization and into Transcendence but the minute the bottom for are pulled out, your world collapses.
I don't know that this theory is concrete but it makes so much sense in so many ways when you look at New Orleans in the day following the storm. Physiological or shelter needs and safety needs had to be met. People didn't feel safe and started looting for weapons and other goods. Immediately they formed gangs to protect what they had and ultimately this protection made them feel safe.
I think that it is interesting to look at this pyramid in light of New Orleans as an example but how much more so is it to look at it in a Christian perspective according to sin. When you look at the Garden of Eden post-sin, what did God offer? Clothing in the form of leaves. Secondly, Adam and Eve needed to feel safety. They were unsure of what would happen and God told them that he would make a way but with sin came a punishment. He showed them the way through sacrifice. In that coverage of sin, they found belongingness and ultimately esteem....... so goes our life.
I know I can feel so far from God when my foundation gets pulled out. I look for my own way to find hope again, to feel apart of something bigger. God always delivers, but you just have to trust it and not hide in the bushes when you have dropped the ball. I will always be amazed at the provision God gives in times of need. He cares so much for the people who can't fend for themselves. The orphan and the widow come up a lot as a high priority for the New Testament Church. I am just glad I got to help where I could.
