Wednesday, June 30, 2010

LORD, Do I have Stories!

Mmm!


I got back last night from two weeks in some podunk, all-White town in North Alabama, unaffected by natural disasters and poor race relations.
That's not true. I was in New Orleans.

Hania, a girl who I've been slyly referencing for about two years (especially when the story is about self-pity), hooked me up with a trip to The Big Easy.

Service Work.

It's a beautiful, muggy mess, man. Hurricane Katrina killed some serious employment foundations and continues to wink at the residents with abandoned homes and empty lots, five years down the road. The oil spill has brought some would-be rig workers to the Easy, too.
On top of those environmental catastrophes, alcohol there is like meth here: Plentiful. Half of the French Quarter is washouts with great stories and hungry hearts.
Bruce Springsteen lives in New Orleans.

Education in the city is horrid, also. I met too many people with illiterate leanings. Adults, middle-class. Too many. This is the West, isn't it?

No, Joel. This is where the "Global South" got its name.

The whole time, or at least the time when I wasn't reveling REALLY loathing my neighbor or looking lustfully at everything downtown or in a(as of yet) unspoiled gulf of Mexico,
I wondered, I refuted what the difference was.
Had I done anything of substance? Had I contributed to the rise of a once cosmopolity?

I packed boxes of books in Capdau Elementary, I painted baseboard in a church office, I handed and shook the homeless looking for a good camping spot, I dug a ditch, killed weeds, smiled, witnessed, Strove to make a difference,
but this city is shattered.

Not ruins, but perpetual shatter. There is much room for improvement.
And of the thousand, maybe tens of thousands of volunteers that come down, is my time drop in the water?

Am I faceless many? I must be, right? I have to be. I can't have an ego in this place, staring out the soul-crushing shattered windows of a charter school.
I can't.

I just can't.

That was until I was standing next to a VCR and Hania, talking with Miss Luvenia about faith and race. Our host, whose house we were painting "Winter Hedge," said, as if in a dream,
"You have no idea how much difference you're making.
"This means the world."

Or something.
I paraphrase because the moment passed like all others, and her sincerity struck me.

I hope I didn't get preachy.
I have cooler stories about getting stuck groggy in a what could have been a tropical storm at six in the morning, swimming with fish, falling in and out of perspective,

But what struck me about the trip, past the breast-beating and the evangelism, was the thing Miss Luvenia said to me. An old, black widow, hardly walking, telling me she'd rather be me.
And I told her that I'd rather be her.

That was the crux of it. I think. The crux of the whole trip, of my life so far. Or something.
Or nothing.

For those of us who lack faith, who struggle with the idea, or feel outside the club that already has meaning pre-attached because of the One Truth of their faith,

We have to find our own meaning. Miss Luvenia smiled and told me I'd be a good father.

3 comments:

Chris McCormack said...

"It's a beautiful, muggy mess, man. Hurricane Katrina killed some serious employment foundations and continues to wink at the residents with abandoned homes and empty lots, five years down the road."

Awesome use of the word "Wink."

sj said...

i'm sorry you feel faith is an exclusive, snobby club. i don't think Jesus would be very pleased with that feeling...just like he wasn't 2000 years ago with the religious clubs of the ancient Middle East. he had some zingers for the pharisees. really. look in the gospels. he really nailed them.

press on, my friend. all truth is God's truth.

pieceofpuzzled said...

The article explicitly commented on our wonderful design that had not been thought about. Now you're even more wondering why would we consider an aircraft that is not just something for men. Now I don't understand why there's so little involvement with girls who are sitting there just waiting. You're going to inspire them to think about an aircraft that is absolutely desirable. What I can't have therefore is to be building the city to make sure that the outside fits the interior architecture. Imagine flying over it in an aircraft larger than anything that this world has seen. I don't have to tell how this is a problem that we never had in the United States. However, if you were to go to the Sahara, it would take an aircraft can easily fly upside down. Earlier, completing my MBA in the United States required you to use your feet and all your troubles begin. I don't understand why anyone would do that. I don't understand why there aren't more feet - at least dimension-wise. So I think that in the end I got all the answers.
Kurd is the Word.