Guest Editorial for September 15, 2005
By Lacy Thompson
If there is a word for what has happened in New Orleans-and elsewhere along the Gulf Coast-during the last 10 days or so, only God knows it.
It does not exist in human language.
“Catastrophe.” “Nightmare.” “The perfect storm.” None of them fit. None even come close.
There have been other hurricanes. There have been downed trees and powerlines, collapsed buildings and shattered windows, even flooding.
But not like this.
Even for lifetime South Louisiana natives, this is something on another scale.
And there simply are no words.
The trees can be cut, the power lines replaced, the buildings and windows restored. Even the flooding can recede and its evidence be erased.
But how does one describe the human cost?
What word is there for the cries of those in the dark who were trapped and hungry and thirsty and hopeless?
What word is there for the suffering children?
What word is there for those who waited-and wait still perhaps-unsure if they still had a home?
What word is there for those who need not wait, who know their home-and job and neighborhood and life-as-they-knew-it-is gone?
What word is there for those who know something even more precious is gone-a mother, father, son, daughter, sister, brother, friend?
I am a New Orleans native. Like others, I have watched the deterioration of my city.
A lot of friends I know lost a large part of their lives last week. A lot of friends I had not had the chance to meet died last week-and there are no words to express what that means.
As so often before, I turn to the Psalms.
It is the cries of the desperate that speak first.
“Hear my prayer, O Lord; listen to my cry for help; be not deaf to my weeping” (Psalm 39:12a).
“Answer me, O Lord, out of the goodness of your love; in your great mercy turn to me. Do not hide your face from your servant; answer me quickly, for I am in trouble” (Psalm 69:16-17).
But there is comfort to be found as well-in familiar passages still full of unexplainable peace.
“God is our refuge and strength, an ever present help in trouble. Therefore, we will not fear, though the earth give way and the mountains fall into the heart of the sea, though its waters roar and foam, and the mountains quake with their surging” (Psalm 46:1).
It is the comfort of Habakkuk, who sees the destruction around him and cries out to God for answers. In the end, faith is the only answer given, faith even in the midst of unknowable despair.
So, it is that even in the midst of faith, there is hurt, a hurt dammed behind a levee of its own that threatens to break. When it does, the tears flow-and the tears themselves somehow become the words that fail elsewhere.
The tears carry the weight of the prayers.
Yes, life will go on; yes, people will respond-and are responding-in heroic fashion; and yes, the city will rebuild in some form or fashion.
But there will be no erasing the evidence of these days, of the horror that played itself out in full color like a made-for-television movie.
That will remain.
Indeed, on some day, somewhere, a woman will approach and introduce herself.
“I'm Katrina,” she will say and smile, extending a hand of greeting.
And I will take it, offering a timid smile of my own, hoping against all hope that somehow she did not see me wince at the name.
Lacy Thompson is associate editor of Louisiana's Baptist Message.