15) Today, Maggie and I had a great conversation about her day at school. Like all good fathers, I asked her what she learned about today. She's not yet jaded enough to mutter the non-committal "nothing" that I'll get from her in a few years, so she told me that she learned about the news. In Maggie's world, the big news of the day regarded hurricanes. Apparently they learned about Irene and, in the course of discussion talked about Katrina. Like most 5 year-olds, Maggie's chronology is a little off. She was uncertain if Katrina was an ongoing event or if it happened "back in the old days". (As funny as this sounds, Suzanne was pregnant with Maggie during the storm, so I guess those were the old days) As she mentioned Katrina, I looked at the date and realized that today was the anniversary.
And what an anniversary. Suzanne and I were still newlyweds, awaiting the birth of a little girl. I had just begun my last year of seminary in New Orleans and we were counting down the days until Maggie's arrival. We knew that there was a storm in the Gulf, but being well-seasoned residents of the coast, we didn't give it a lot of extra thought. During church Sunday morning, Bro. Teddie received word that the storm had strengthened to a Category 5 and we knew we had some decisions to make. I've never been one to evacuate, as I've always lived on high ground and in a well-built home. As I thought about Suzanne's delicate condition (7 1/2 months along) I decided to leave. We hopped in the car Sunday night and headed northeast to beautiful Albany, GA where we rode it out the storm with some of our family.
We got a good night's sleep on Sunday night and did everything we could find to do in Albany on Monday morning. Unfortunately, everything we could find to do occupied us for about 45 minutes. So, by 10 am we were back on hurricane watch. I was able to watch the local broadcast online, and the Weather Channel was available in the hotel. We watched the drama unfold from afar, with no real knowledge of what to expect when we got home.
You know the rest of the story, probably better than I do. We only lost a few shingles, while others lost everything. Along N. Wintzell and points South, some of my favorite spots and sights had been reduced to rubble. I felt like I'd been dropped into an alien world where home was there but would never be just the same again.
I got a message from the seminary the next day. The campus had received little significant damage and we would go back to class at the start of the next week. Then, the levees broke. I wouldn't return to New Orleans until May, this time as a member of the "Katrina class". We had finished our studies online, through correspondence, and at extension centers. Nonetheless, we were graduates. If seeing the Bayou after Katrina had been a nightmare for its familiarity, New Orleans was as bad for its scope. The only hotel rooms we could find were in the French Quarter, so with my wife and new baby in tow, we headed in for the night, preparing for a big day on Saturday.
Normally, I have no trepidation about the Quarter. I know it well. I've visited often. I'm just not the skittish type. This night was somehow different. New Orleans felt strange and different. The majority of the folks I encountered seemed like survivors of an apocalypse, discovering meaning a landscape that had been forever altered by the times and tides of nature. The next day, the seminary chapel was open for business for the first time since the storm came ashore. It was a day of celebration and tears, like all graduations. Naturally, all of those emotions were intensified as many of us were reunited for the first time, post-Katrina.
The night before graduation, we had the opportunity to join two dear friends and their wives for a night out to eat at on old favorite haunt in the Quarter. It was a good night with good friends but we all commented on the state of the Quarter. What was it that was so different from any other trip I had ever made? Then I came to the moment of realization: The smell was gone.
16) If you've ever visited the Quarter, you know what I'm talking about. If you've not, one of the peculiarities of the French Quarter is its distinctive smell. I'm not sure that anyone knows what all of the major components of this smell are, but none of them are particularly pleasant. In combination, they produce a stench that more sensitive nostrils will find particularly disagreeable. For all of the ambiance that this district offers, the smell can be difficult for a first-time visitor to overcome.
On this night, the smell was gone. It seemed that the flood waters and recovery had taken it away, if only for a little while. As the waters receded, they left behind a scent of hope. Everywhere I traveled in the days following Katrina, up and down the Coast, you could sense it. Even in the midst of destruction beyond my feeble imaginings, people were finding hope.
Maggie has had some questions about hurricanes, and I'm afraid I don't have very many good answers. She's never experienced one and can't understand why they happen. Neither can I. I've received good theological training and I know the textbook answers. I figure God doesn't need me to defend Him. He does a pretty good job of that on His own. Like everyone else, I find myself in the wake of tragedy wondering about the why. Then I find it. Not the why, but the hope. I don't know why God floods my little plot of Earth sometimes, but when the waters receded, we always found hope.
Sunday night, I preached about Noah and the Ark. Regardless of your position on biblical inspiration and inerrancy, Noah's story is fascinating. In a day where God flooded the entirety of the earth and delivered out one man and his family alive, I imagine that hope was hard to come by. When Noah and his boys emerged from the ark onto dry ground, I can't imagine what they were confronted with. I suppose if it were me, a flood of emotion would overwhelm me as I faced the reality of a home that would never be like it was. Noah found hope, a new order, a covenant with God, and a promise of unending faithfulness. Perhaps, for the first time in a long time, the smell was gone.
Tonight, as I think about the destruction of a region, the death of over 1,800 people, and the psychological impact of the devastation, I'm thankful that there's hope. I find myself wondering what in the world is going on in the world from time to time, but then I remember hope. Hope for today and for a future. For the promise that the day is coming when all of the storms will have passed:
16 So we do not lose heart. Though our outer self is wasting away, our inner self is being renewed day by day. 17 For this light momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison, 18 as we look not to the things that are seen but to the things that are unseen. For the things that are seen are transient, but the things that are unseen are eternal.
2 Corinthians 4:16-18
Another storm will come, let's hold on to the hope of the unseen.
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