a few notes about new orleans.

pray for the city. pray for the area. if you have money, donate it. in whatever way you feel led, love the people there. they desperately need it. next, the "judgment" issue. i have been hearing this from a few quarters (just a few, which is good) and it concerns me. in the Bible even when G-d harshly and blatantly judged a nation, His heart broke about it. He had compassion and His prophets had compassion for the people who were being "judged." i was just reading in jeremiah 45 where G-d is grieving over moab, whom He is about to judge. the things that are happening in that part of the country right now are horrible. the situation is horrible. it is worse in many ways than 9/11 and people did the same thing then... they rushed to say it was judgment on america. and i hope that folks will forgive me for being a bit angry when i heard that, because it took me several days after 9/11 to verify that my friends were all okay (some by the skin of their teeth). speaking to believers: i'm sorry, but these are human beings, many of them believers, most of them no more lost than we were before we came to know the L-rd. we should be absolutely consumed with compassion for these people. go to someone who lost everything and tell them it was judgment from G-d, and just watch how fast their heart hardens toward your god. essentially, i don't think it helps anyone to say "it was judgment" after the fact. the prophets always warned people before the disasters came. after they happen, i think it comes down to matthew 7: judge not, lest you be judged. seek and save the lost. that is our call. be examples of mercy triumphing over judgment and love even our "enemies," whatever we perceive our "enemies" to be (the conservatives, the liberals, the pro-palestinians, whoever). we also happen to be in the highest (ie., worst) point of the 70- or 80-year atlantic / gulf hurricane cycle, and we have been utterly idiotic about the levee system in the mississippi delta for decades. after new orleans' near-miss in the 2004 hurricane season i read about this, and even a cursory look at the situation made it clear that unless drastic action was taken, the city would be turned into a toxic cesspool by some storm or another in the next 2-3 years. as soon as i heard about katrina i feared the worst and started praying against it. sadly, instead of addressing the root problems with the levees / sediment situation after the 2004 season (or sooner), and instead of sending all those national guard buses and assisting the evacuation before a potentially horrendous disaster struck (instead of the almost lackadaisical response in light of the current situation), our nation ignored the danger and hoped it would go away. in a purely practical / scientific way, one could say we have been "judged" for our abuse and deliberate ignorance of the environment in that area. we have to be careful of aligning the latest disaster to fit our political / idealistic affiliation. last year i saw a map showing how the florida hurricanes in 2001-2004 hit the counties that (apparently) voted for mr. bush in 2000. or maybe katrina and subsequent gas prices are judgment on our nation for our addictive abuse of oil. i don't subscribe to any of these theories but it just goes to show that you can read lots of things into phenomena like this if you really want to. to date, i have heard two main theories of judgment about this hurricane. this post is getting long so i'll post them separately.