I "spent" Christmas Eve in Chattanooga. On one hand my activity that day brought home how much I've (we've?) lost sight of what we celebrate. I waited until Tuesday to start shopping (not that it matters much since my budget for purchased gifts is quite 'modest' these days). The stores all had 50% reductions or more since so little money is being spent, except WalMart whose parking lot was packed almost completely with parked cars.
Fortunately, when I went to Thomas's (my older son) graduation (cum laude) I brought my camera. Also fortunately I brought my camera to Ship Island last summer, and also to a client's home and got some pretty good photographs. I purchased some frames for 50% off at Hobby Lobby along with some matting board and made some prints at Wolf Camera. So, after a few hours composing, cutting and trimming I managed several mounted prints, all good gifts ( in my thinking and hopefully in theirs) for the people in my life that mean something to me.
On the other hand, the Christmas Eve service at Northside reminded me of what is so good about God's gifts. We had a good service, I heard many of my younger son's friends read the Christmas story, saw Rachel a seminary student who asked if I'd made up my mind about Union PSCE. All I can say to her is I've done my part with all the paperwork to three seminaries and our presbytery, and soon, I hope, all I have to do is wait and contemplate what decisions (that I know will be hard) lie before me of what I am going to do. The only bittersweet things of the service was I didn't see Terry, Russell's erstwhile, proxy mom in his teen years to whom I owe much; and this was JoeB Martin IV's last service before he leaves for Mount Vernon Presbyterian Church in Sandy Springs, aka, Atlanta. JoeB is a good friend who does not let me forget my gifts and obligations.
God is good. While I'm writing this entry on Christmas day, shortly after midnight, my Ipod shuffle is playing a song from Messenger, a Christian rock group whose lead vocalist is a friend of mine in Vermont. Search for them on the web. Also, I got four Christmas best wishes e-mail, from the vocalist, from Joe K in Pearlington and from some of my associates who stayed in Gulfport for Christmas.
So friends, let's celebrate the joy of who we honor today and consider Simeon's song. Simeon was a devote man who would not see death before he had seen the Lord's Christ, a man who knew by the Holy Spirit what would unfold:
"Lord now let thy servant go in peace according to your word,
for I have seen your salvation which you have prepared in the presence of all your people,
a light to those in darkness outside your covenant and to the Glory of Israel.
Behold Mary, this child is set for the fall and rising of many in Israel,
and for a sign that is spoken against that thoughts out of many hearts may be revealed.
A sword will pierce through your own soul also."
(my paraphrase of Luke 2:25-35, RSV)
Do good to a stranger and remember the two greater commandments. Grace to you all and have a joyful and safe Christmas Day.
Henry
Thursday, December 25, 2008
Tuesday, December 23, 2008
Day 268 - The Fire in My Bosom Burns My Clothes (A Christmas Story)
Henry Paris, December 23, 2008 (all rights reserved) revised Day 194 blog
I can read Job as a presage of Christmas, as an Advent story:
The Innocent stands on the street at the entrance to the building listening to the noise and hurrah within but is not quite able to make out what is said. Not only is he not welcome inside, he is forbidden entry. Yet, he clings to his inner confidence of who resides inside.
Two men come out of the building walking in a deliberate pace. They are engaged in an animated, angry complaint and brush by the Innocent, pushing him aside as one says to the other, “I’m tired of waiting, I doubt this thing is ever going to get started. I’m going home. This is pointless.”
Regardless of the danger, The Innocent decides to enter to learn exactly what is not getting started. He walks confidently through the door and finds a spot on the low wall behind the top row of the central aisle that leads down to the stage. He leans forward on the wall with his elbows and watches and listens.
The crowd is restive. The building is full. It is hot, hazy or smoky, the light is not very good and everyone is sweaty and uncomfortable.
The Innocent realizes previously a series of speakers seated at the front have mounted the stage and warmed up the crowd, this must have been the noise he heard when he was outside on the street. Now, two more great men stand to speak and proclaim great hope for the future and woe to the crowd for its behavior. The person leading the ceremony names the next, Jeremiah, the Innocent thinks he hears. This speaker quotes the words of THE LORD to the crowd, “I am sick of your sacrifices, your burnt offerings; why are you not caring for the poor, freeing the captives and honoring the stranger in your land? Circumcise your heart to me lest my wrath go forth like fire!”
At these strange words the noise level of the crowd drops quite noticeably. The speaker had hardly finished speaking when a voice in the crowd shouted from the other side of the hall echoes, “Thou art my King and my God who ordained victories for Jacob, through you we push down our foes, for in our own strength we cannot trust and we continually give thanks to you; yet you have cast us off and abased us, made us a laughingstock among the peoples of the world. Why do you hide your face? Why do you forget our oppression? Rise up and come to our help in the name of your steadfast love!”
Then another voice from the rear of the auditorium to the right of the Innocent shouts back, “Can a man carry fire in his bosom and his clothes not get burned? Wise men lay up knowledge, but the babbling fool brings ruin near.”
While all this is happening, the Innocent watches as who appears to be the final speaker harangues the crowd. Many faces among the crowd redden with anger and frustration at this speaker’s words. Shaking fists are raised. A renewed chorus of shouts, “Blasphemy! Blasphemy!” rain about this final speaker, the insane one named Ezekiel, as he steps down from the stage defiantly and walks towards his seat in the front row inwardly smiling while dodging fists from patrons nearby and objects thrown at him from the crowd afar.
Finally the crowd’s shouting diminishes. Suddenly a deafening sound from nowhere and everywhere as if it were a whirlwind forming a voice echoes in the hall, “I thought I would pour out my wrath upon you and spend my anger against you in the wilderness. But, I withheld my hand and acted for the sake of my name, that I would not be profaned in the sight of the nations in whose sight I brought you out. Moreover, I gave you statutes that were not good and ordinances by which you could not live; and I defiled you through your own gifts by demanding you offer to the fire all your first born so I might horrify you, so you will know I AM THE LORD.”
The crowd turns into angry pandemonium and the organizers panic. They try to keep control of the proceedings by hurrying the anonymous announcer of the fight onto the stage with microphone in hand. He begins, "Gentlemen, in one corner we will have The Innocent standing in for the goodness and kindness of God and human virtue. In the other corner we will have his Adversary standing in defense of the Psalms (especially the 44th), and wisdom of Proverbs.
The noise of the crowd increases. Out in the rear seats a heckler with “King Lear” written across the front of his baseball hat sputters at this spectacle and shouts in a strong bass voice, “As flies to wanton boys, are we to the gods. They kill us for their sport."
In the wings off stage-right, The One called God smiles with a self-satisfied knowledge and casts his gamble with The Adversary who is standing on stage-left. The Innocent, who in actuality is a stranger from another land, has learned of this God and has come to love and honor Him more greatly than his people in this audience. The Innocent standing far in the rear listens but the noise and pandemonium drown out the words from the stage. He stands erect and moves to the center of the aisle that leads down to the stage to better hear the discourse. One of the organizers looks up at the motion and recognizes the man. He bids his fellows to drag The Innocent to the stage, now converted to a ring for the fight.
The Adversary considers his wager and taunts The One, ”Of what value is faith if practiced only for reward?” He leaves the building, smiling with a self-satisfied knowledge.
Thirteen rounds later the Innocent is no more an innocent but a beaten, defeated man who still fights to deny his newly found knowledge that there can be no assurance of reward for the loyal servant; that this God can do ill to a good man. Yet he still clings to his faith in God, even with the knowledge that he has unleashed the crowd to splay and kill his family and burnt his home and possessions. All this carnage at God’s instigation by a wager with…can it be Himself? Cowering, fearful and trapped, the Innocent clings to that faith even though his Adversary has broken his body.
Now, the organizers from the ring drag the Innocent into the wings, bloodied and diseased. As they pass behind the curtain on stage-left, The Innocent turns his head and shouts across the stage to The One standing there that this cannot be without cause and demands of the Adversary, the Wrath of God, to explain what ill the Innocent has done to merit this defeat.
Unaware a nearby microphone is still turned on, The Gambler still stands in the wings of stage-right stunned, not by this nothing’s words, but that he has allowed this horribly cruel and capricious thing of his Own to unfold. A tear rolls down the cheek of The Gambler as the Innocent demands this explanation; but as fast as the tear forms, an impulse of unbounded fury rises in his chest. He shouts with a rage so intense that it shakes the walls and roof of the entire building so strongly bits of plaster fall down on the crowd,” It is so because I wanted it so!”
This final fury cows the Innocent lying on the floor. He is too terrified and too devastated to look directly at The Adversary and question again boldly why this ill-made reward for goodness results only from His capriciousness. The Innocent is determined however to hazard a very quietly and a very carefully crafted final acknowledgement, “I now see You for who You are and can only fear for us all.”
The crowd has watched this one-sided beating unfold and now most eyes of the crowd stare stunned at the empty stage, they are staggered, ears listening to this argument and the veiled resistance of the beaten Innocent coming from the PA system.
People stand uneasily. Finally those towards the rear begin to file out. As they leave, a woman waiting at the rear turns to her husband and grabs his arm tightly. She whispers, “This can’t be it. This can’t be all there is, can it? Is this it?” The husband struggles for some assuring words, finally muttering to his wife under his breath, “No, it can’t be. There must be hope for reward.” Another fellow in the departing crowd who hears the man’s reply to his wife says, “Hey, don’t be too zealous, or too rowdy, find the middle ground. Don’t rock the boat or you’ll get stepped on.”
There in the wings the Innocent struggles to his feet and the Gambler stands in silence. Both are too uncomfortable to look at each other, for their misery is great. Both are devastated by what has unfolded. They squirm in the pain of self-acknowledgement, the Gambler in recognition of who He is, the Innocent in sullen, submissive recognition of who God is. Finally The Gambler turns to leave, holding the fight’s purse, a bag of coins. As he passes the Innocent Man, he tosses the bag of coins at the Innocent’s feet along with another equally sized bag. The One speaks tenderly, “I AM my Word. I will not restore your family but I remember Second Isaiah’s words, today I repent; your fortune shall be restored. You shall receive double compensation. Now, I must go away to think of what we have done here today.” He bows his head and yet even though in his repentance his anger is kindled against the crowd, still he relents.
He will speak no more for 500 years, when at last he will decide finally enough is enough. He will come to show to both the crowd and The Innocent’s people by way of an inexplicable Supreme Sacrifice, “I do love you all as I love Myself. I do forgive and I do repent for you are a part of me. Truly, no more shall death have its sting. The Adversary is defeated.”
Have a joyful Christmas – Amen.
I can read Job as a presage of Christmas, as an Advent story:
The Innocent stands on the street at the entrance to the building listening to the noise and hurrah within but is not quite able to make out what is said. Not only is he not welcome inside, he is forbidden entry. Yet, he clings to his inner confidence of who resides inside.
Two men come out of the building walking in a deliberate pace. They are engaged in an animated, angry complaint and brush by the Innocent, pushing him aside as one says to the other, “I’m tired of waiting, I doubt this thing is ever going to get started. I’m going home. This is pointless.”
Regardless of the danger, The Innocent decides to enter to learn exactly what is not getting started. He walks confidently through the door and finds a spot on the low wall behind the top row of the central aisle that leads down to the stage. He leans forward on the wall with his elbows and watches and listens.
The crowd is restive. The building is full. It is hot, hazy or smoky, the light is not very good and everyone is sweaty and uncomfortable.
The Innocent realizes previously a series of speakers seated at the front have mounted the stage and warmed up the crowd, this must have been the noise he heard when he was outside on the street. Now, two more great men stand to speak and proclaim great hope for the future and woe to the crowd for its behavior. The person leading the ceremony names the next, Jeremiah, the Innocent thinks he hears. This speaker quotes the words of THE LORD to the crowd, “I am sick of your sacrifices, your burnt offerings; why are you not caring for the poor, freeing the captives and honoring the stranger in your land? Circumcise your heart to me lest my wrath go forth like fire!”
At these strange words the noise level of the crowd drops quite noticeably. The speaker had hardly finished speaking when a voice in the crowd shouted from the other side of the hall echoes, “Thou art my King and my God who ordained victories for Jacob, through you we push down our foes, for in our own strength we cannot trust and we continually give thanks to you; yet you have cast us off and abased us, made us a laughingstock among the peoples of the world. Why do you hide your face? Why do you forget our oppression? Rise up and come to our help in the name of your steadfast love!”
Then another voice from the rear of the auditorium to the right of the Innocent shouts back, “Can a man carry fire in his bosom and his clothes not get burned? Wise men lay up knowledge, but the babbling fool brings ruin near.”
While all this is happening, the Innocent watches as who appears to be the final speaker harangues the crowd. Many faces among the crowd redden with anger and frustration at this speaker’s words. Shaking fists are raised. A renewed chorus of shouts, “Blasphemy! Blasphemy!” rain about this final speaker, the insane one named Ezekiel, as he steps down from the stage defiantly and walks towards his seat in the front row inwardly smiling while dodging fists from patrons nearby and objects thrown at him from the crowd afar.
Finally the crowd’s shouting diminishes. Suddenly a deafening sound from nowhere and everywhere as if it were a whirlwind forming a voice echoes in the hall, “I thought I would pour out my wrath upon you and spend my anger against you in the wilderness. But, I withheld my hand and acted for the sake of my name, that I would not be profaned in the sight of the nations in whose sight I brought you out. Moreover, I gave you statutes that were not good and ordinances by which you could not live; and I defiled you through your own gifts by demanding you offer to the fire all your first born so I might horrify you, so you will know I AM THE LORD.”
The crowd turns into angry pandemonium and the organizers panic. They try to keep control of the proceedings by hurrying the anonymous announcer of the fight onto the stage with microphone in hand. He begins, "Gentlemen, in one corner we will have The Innocent standing in for the goodness and kindness of God and human virtue. In the other corner we will have his Adversary standing in defense of the Psalms (especially the 44th), and wisdom of Proverbs.
The noise of the crowd increases. Out in the rear seats a heckler with “King Lear” written across the front of his baseball hat sputters at this spectacle and shouts in a strong bass voice, “As flies to wanton boys, are we to the gods. They kill us for their sport."
In the wings off stage-right, The One called God smiles with a self-satisfied knowledge and casts his gamble with The Adversary who is standing on stage-left. The Innocent, who in actuality is a stranger from another land, has learned of this God and has come to love and honor Him more greatly than his people in this audience. The Innocent standing far in the rear listens but the noise and pandemonium drown out the words from the stage. He stands erect and moves to the center of the aisle that leads down to the stage to better hear the discourse. One of the organizers looks up at the motion and recognizes the man. He bids his fellows to drag The Innocent to the stage, now converted to a ring for the fight.
The Adversary considers his wager and taunts The One, ”Of what value is faith if practiced only for reward?” He leaves the building, smiling with a self-satisfied knowledge.
Thirteen rounds later the Innocent is no more an innocent but a beaten, defeated man who still fights to deny his newly found knowledge that there can be no assurance of reward for the loyal servant; that this God can do ill to a good man. Yet he still clings to his faith in God, even with the knowledge that he has unleashed the crowd to splay and kill his family and burnt his home and possessions. All this carnage at God’s instigation by a wager with…can it be Himself? Cowering, fearful and trapped, the Innocent clings to that faith even though his Adversary has broken his body.
Now, the organizers from the ring drag the Innocent into the wings, bloodied and diseased. As they pass behind the curtain on stage-left, The Innocent turns his head and shouts across the stage to The One standing there that this cannot be without cause and demands of the Adversary, the Wrath of God, to explain what ill the Innocent has done to merit this defeat.
Unaware a nearby microphone is still turned on, The Gambler still stands in the wings of stage-right stunned, not by this nothing’s words, but that he has allowed this horribly cruel and capricious thing of his Own to unfold. A tear rolls down the cheek of The Gambler as the Innocent demands this explanation; but as fast as the tear forms, an impulse of unbounded fury rises in his chest. He shouts with a rage so intense that it shakes the walls and roof of the entire building so strongly bits of plaster fall down on the crowd,” It is so because I wanted it so!”
This final fury cows the Innocent lying on the floor. He is too terrified and too devastated to look directly at The Adversary and question again boldly why this ill-made reward for goodness results only from His capriciousness. The Innocent is determined however to hazard a very quietly and a very carefully crafted final acknowledgement, “I now see You for who You are and can only fear for us all.”
The crowd has watched this one-sided beating unfold and now most eyes of the crowd stare stunned at the empty stage, they are staggered, ears listening to this argument and the veiled resistance of the beaten Innocent coming from the PA system.
People stand uneasily. Finally those towards the rear begin to file out. As they leave, a woman waiting at the rear turns to her husband and grabs his arm tightly. She whispers, “This can’t be it. This can’t be all there is, can it? Is this it?” The husband struggles for some assuring words, finally muttering to his wife under his breath, “No, it can’t be. There must be hope for reward.” Another fellow in the departing crowd who hears the man’s reply to his wife says, “Hey, don’t be too zealous, or too rowdy, find the middle ground. Don’t rock the boat or you’ll get stepped on.”
There in the wings the Innocent struggles to his feet and the Gambler stands in silence. Both are too uncomfortable to look at each other, for their misery is great. Both are devastated by what has unfolded. They squirm in the pain of self-acknowledgement, the Gambler in recognition of who He is, the Innocent in sullen, submissive recognition of who God is. Finally The Gambler turns to leave, holding the fight’s purse, a bag of coins. As he passes the Innocent Man, he tosses the bag of coins at the Innocent’s feet along with another equally sized bag. The One speaks tenderly, “I AM my Word. I will not restore your family but I remember Second Isaiah’s words, today I repent; your fortune shall be restored. You shall receive double compensation. Now, I must go away to think of what we have done here today.” He bows his head and yet even though in his repentance his anger is kindled against the crowd, still he relents.
He will speak no more for 500 years, when at last he will decide finally enough is enough. He will come to show to both the crowd and The Innocent’s people by way of an inexplicable Supreme Sacrifice, “I do love you all as I love Myself. I do forgive and I do repent for you are a part of me. Truly, no more shall death have its sting. The Adversary is defeated.”
Have a joyful Christmas – Amen.
Sunday, December 21, 2008
Day 266 - Sundogs
This afternoon about 4:15, as I approached the entrance ramp to I-10 off US49 in Gulfport to drive over to D’iberville on a Christmas gift delivery from my church (Northside Presbyterian in Chattanooga) out of Gulfport I looked towards the setting Sun. The sky was magnificent this evening, a lot of high clouds and an Alaska Express blowing down and just brushing us.
There low in the sky were two sun dogs, The southernmost one was unusual. It spanned an arc of about twenty-thirty degrees partly encircling the Sun.
Sun dogs are bright faux-suns displaced left or right, and perpendicularly above or below the sun. There can be as many as four or as few as one, in extreme cases they turn into ring around the sun much like the halo often observed around he moon. Even though they occur everywhere since they rely only upon the confluence of a few physical factors such as a relatively clear sky with enough with high clouds containing ice crystals between the viewer and the Sun, I'm always fascinated by sun dogs. I'll leave it to my brother, the atmospheric scientist to explain them in detail, or google the web.
I believe the appearance of sundogs is auspicious in some of the southwest Indian lore, (Hopi, Navajo, Pueblo or Zuni) . My brother, the atmospheric scientist in the family spent timeout west and told me about sundogs. I’ll forego the whole explanation about ice crystals, their orientation and the like.
In these few days before Christmas, some auspicious events would be welcome because, you see, I’ve been working alone on a house in Gulfport. We do not have any volunteers until January 10, and I have no work site manager at the moment.
It’s Mr. Percy’s house. The good news is last Friday morning the city gave us a go on the rough-in inspection and we can install insulation and drywall now. I planned to get the insulation over there by noon and start installing. Unfortunately the guy responsible for the trailers left me a derelict. It took the better part of two hours for me to repair temporarily a shade tree mechanic’s job on its wiring so brake and tail lights worked. (Yes, I could chew nails.) I loaded up the derelict with insulation and delivered it to the house. With this puny trailer it took two trips and I had to unload it all by myself.
I have some interest in getting the insulation installed and the drywall up. Mr. Percy’s dear wife is about worn out staying with her son and wants to get into the house soon. She told me the last time I saw here over at the house that she was going to go to Chattanooga with me and stay at my house until hers was done. When I hear her say “Mr. Henry…” I look for her holding a suitcase.
I feel badly about it but I’m ready for a break today and head to Chattanooga. It hurts me to leave Mr. Percy, his wife and son to do all the work with the insulation themselves, but my plan to try to get the drywall to the house tomorrow is compromised by that little crippled 8 foot trailer. I may end up doing multiple runs using my truck next week, if Mr. Percy has someone there to help unload it. I’ll get the drywall jack over there so they can tackle the ceilings. Maybe by the time I return Sunday after Christmas they will be ready for the drywall and I’ll be ready to work on it with them.
Tuesday morning I plan to be on the road again. Maybe I’ll get to a Christmas story before the day comes. Regardless, Merry Christmas to all!
There low in the sky were two sun dogs, The southernmost one was unusual. It spanned an arc of about twenty-thirty degrees partly encircling the Sun.
Sun dogs are bright faux-suns displaced left or right, and perpendicularly above or below the sun. There can be as many as four or as few as one, in extreme cases they turn into ring around the sun much like the halo often observed around he moon. Even though they occur everywhere since they rely only upon the confluence of a few physical factors such as a relatively clear sky with enough with high clouds containing ice crystals between the viewer and the Sun, I'm always fascinated by sun dogs. I'll leave it to my brother, the atmospheric scientist to explain them in detail, or google the web.
I believe the appearance of sundogs is auspicious in some of the southwest Indian lore, (Hopi, Navajo, Pueblo or Zuni) . My brother, the atmospheric scientist in the family spent timeout west and told me about sundogs. I’ll forego the whole explanation about ice crystals, their orientation and the like.
In these few days before Christmas, some auspicious events would be welcome because, you see, I’ve been working alone on a house in Gulfport. We do not have any volunteers until January 10, and I have no work site manager at the moment.
It’s Mr. Percy’s house. The good news is last Friday morning the city gave us a go on the rough-in inspection and we can install insulation and drywall now. I planned to get the insulation over there by noon and start installing. Unfortunately the guy responsible for the trailers left me a derelict. It took the better part of two hours for me to repair temporarily a shade tree mechanic’s job on its wiring so brake and tail lights worked. (Yes, I could chew nails.) I loaded up the derelict with insulation and delivered it to the house. With this puny trailer it took two trips and I had to unload it all by myself.
I have some interest in getting the insulation installed and the drywall up. Mr. Percy’s dear wife is about worn out staying with her son and wants to get into the house soon. She told me the last time I saw here over at the house that she was going to go to Chattanooga with me and stay at my house until hers was done. When I hear her say “Mr. Henry…” I look for her holding a suitcase.
I feel badly about it but I’m ready for a break today and head to Chattanooga. It hurts me to leave Mr. Percy, his wife and son to do all the work with the insulation themselves, but my plan to try to get the drywall to the house tomorrow is compromised by that little crippled 8 foot trailer. I may end up doing multiple runs using my truck next week, if Mr. Percy has someone there to help unload it. I’ll get the drywall jack over there so they can tackle the ceilings. Maybe by the time I return Sunday after Christmas they will be ready for the drywall and I’ll be ready to work on it with them.
Tuesday morning I plan to be on the road again. Maybe I’ll get to a Christmas story before the day comes. Regardless, Merry Christmas to all!
Tuesday, December 9, 2008
Day 254 - More Nails
Today we installed 2x12's and supporting piers as a temporary solution to the crushing girders of our home in Pearlington that is up on 13 foot piers. It took Michael, Julia, Jessi and I about four hours.
We started about 9:30AM. I decided to add about one-eighth to one-quarter inch to the height of the temporary piers because the girders are so crushed. This worked out fine, we had a little struggle with the first pier but by 1:30PM we were packing up our tools to leave.
After a quick bite to eat, Michael and I went over to Bay St. Louis to look at a home that took on about three or so feet of water from Katrina. It's an interesting home, had 3/4 inch heart pine paneling but the whole interior needs work. The woman that lives there had a bad day, troubles with teenage daughter and just the press of all this with little resources to repair. Michael and I talked to her about how we could redo the interior and accommodate her children; then we took some basic measurements.
I dropped Mike off at the Village and headed back. By the time I drove into the Village in Gulfport, Mike was on the phone. Our homeowner had tried to go into his unfinished house on the piers for some reason. The doors (over the girder we supported and lifted a smidgeon) are jammed and he can't open them.
Mike will go by tomorrow and see if he can get them open. I know the cause is the comic book or less thickness we raised the broken girder. I'd just as soon leave it as-is until the professional engineer gives me his recommended repair, but I know that door is going to be a stone in the home owner's shoe until is open. We can't really do any serious work in the house until then. If we hang cabinets, put down floor or tile in the baths, we risk cracking it when we do the final repair.
The big problem is that everyone is being pressed by the State to give up their MEMA (Mississippi Emergency Management Agency) cottages by March. I hear it from almost all our clients. I'm sure there are some who are just doing nothing but living in the cottage but many are working hard to get into homes. The State is solving a delicate problem with a sledge hammer, in my opinion.
We started about 9:30AM. I decided to add about one-eighth to one-quarter inch to the height of the temporary piers because the girders are so crushed. This worked out fine, we had a little struggle with the first pier but by 1:30PM we were packing up our tools to leave.
After a quick bite to eat, Michael and I went over to Bay St. Louis to look at a home that took on about three or so feet of water from Katrina. It's an interesting home, had 3/4 inch heart pine paneling but the whole interior needs work. The woman that lives there had a bad day, troubles with teenage daughter and just the press of all this with little resources to repair. Michael and I talked to her about how we could redo the interior and accommodate her children; then we took some basic measurements.
I dropped Mike off at the Village and headed back. By the time I drove into the Village in Gulfport, Mike was on the phone. Our homeowner had tried to go into his unfinished house on the piers for some reason. The doors (over the girder we supported and lifted a smidgeon) are jammed and he can't open them.
Mike will go by tomorrow and see if he can get them open. I know the cause is the comic book or less thickness we raised the broken girder. I'd just as soon leave it as-is until the professional engineer gives me his recommended repair, but I know that door is going to be a stone in the home owner's shoe until is open. We can't really do any serious work in the house until then. If we hang cabinets, put down floor or tile in the baths, we risk cracking it when we do the final repair.
The big problem is that everyone is being pressed by the State to give up their MEMA (Mississippi Emergency Management Agency) cottages by March. I hear it from almost all our clients. I'm sure there are some who are just doing nothing but living in the cottage but many are working hard to get into homes. The State is solving a delicate problem with a sledge hammer, in my opinion.
Saturday, December 6, 2008
Day 251 - Chewing Nails
Well, the saga of two homes in Pearlington continues. The owners of both homes are suffering from what in my opinion is purely thievery by contractors. Perhaps I should not be so harsh with one of them, he may just be uninformed and lacking good sense. How he responds to the recommended repair I obtain will tell the tale.
These two stories show you an ugly side of humanity. They show how easy it is for the trusting soul to be duped and mis-spend a lot, emphasis, a lot of money.
Case 1 is a new home built up on piers, about twelve-thirteen feet. It is a beautiful house partly funded by some of our volunteers. After we returned from Gustav and began inspecting the house with the help of our great New York City team we realized the supporting girders under the exterior load bearing exterior walls are crushing! Why?
A close look shows that the builder, using very strong, engineered truss-girders for the floor, extended them out to where the exterior load bearing beams should be. Rather that using the called out doubled 2x12 LVL's (laminated veneer lumber) for the exterior load girder he just used a single floor truss. On top of that, on both ends of the house, he improperly cut one of the girders which weakens them seriously.
A single girder constructed of 2x4’s is holding the entire load bearing exterior walls, essentially at least half the entire load of the house. Both front and rear girders are crushing slowly. The New York team, bless them, installed a temporary 2x12 support beam under the crushing girders that provides some arresting relief.
I decided not to hazard a self-generated solution but to bring in a PE (professional engineer) for formal assessment and recommendation for repair. While he was there we discovered not only verification of our assessment of the seriousness of the damage, but that the builder had installed some girders upside down with the surface clearly labeled TOP in large black letters facing down!
Afterwards, I received a concerned call from the PE firm asking that we immediately also install some temporary 4x4 piers under the 2x12 along with a second 2x12 until they can provide a formal solution. We will do that Monday or Tuesday, as soon as I get back to the coast.
Talking with the owner I find the builder was not even a licensed contractor, he was using another contractor's number. I think he is in jail now. Great, we will get no relief from him.
I've written a little about Case 2 earlier. Perhaps this situation is even worse. The husband has been quite ill most of the last six months and has not been able even to provide comments.
The wife of the owner has been living on site and engaging various "contractors" to do plumbing, build exterior porch roofs and re-roof the house. I find it hard to describe these “contractors” as any thing more than “good old boys” but even the term “good” tries one’s patience.
A couple of months ago I had visited and assessed the cost to rebuild this home and asked, if not begged the lady not to engage contractors without checking with me until we got the funding situation clarified. Then Gustav came and went. A month ago I drive up and see that she has paid a man to put on a new roof and a local "handy man" to build an extensive porch roof around three of the four sides of the house.
As I looked from the road I saw the newly shingled roof still had a saddleback look, plus the porch roof has such a low pitch the building code (and instructions on roofing) say no way to a shingled roof. On top of that, from the road it is clear that the porch roof on the north side has a negative slope, running water towards the house.
No roofer in his right mind would put a roof on this house in this condition except to bleed money from the home owner. The whole roof is going to have to be removed to repair the damage.
But the problem is deeper. This "handyman" built the roof by attaching the roof rafters to the fascia boards on the existing roof! Furthermore he employed very large spans using undersized 2x6 rafters and joists. The rafters are bowed and eventually the fascia boards will pull loose and the roof will separate from the house.
The problem grows even deeper. As I inspected the gabled porch roof on the south side of the house I realize he has built a gabled roof without employing any truss structure, just pairs of 2x6 rafters span the space, their ends tied into one of the 2x6 rafters that is itself tied to the fasica boards on one end and sitting on an exterior vertical post on the other end. The unsupported gable rafters are opening up laterally by pushing that 2x6 off the post, it has less than another inch to go.
I could ramble on more technical detail about remaining problems associated with this porch roof, the roofing job on the house and the crummy way these two local boy have abused this woman. But I will not. I imagine she has spent more on the house than would be required to build from scratch.
I'm expecting the PE to validate my thinking, the only solution is to tear off the porch roof and the roofing and redo the whole darn thing. I'm guessing it is going to be expensive.
I remember the PE’s question. “What do you guys do down here, go around and fix these kind of bad construction jobs?” I didn’t say yes, but for a lot of our clients that is the appropriate answer. Disaster brings out the best and the worst in people.
It was all I could do to talk to her and her husband about this with the PE after we finished our inspection. I finally repeated what I'd begged earlier, "Please don't let Mr. H do any more work on this house."
Once I have the PE assessment and solution in hand I intend to talk to Mr. H. Then we will see what manner of integrity he has.
I remember an infrequently used, and therefore effectively imprinted usage of my mother. I always thought it a remarkable expression for the context she used it. It is certainly apropos here.
These guys make me so mad I could chew nails.
These two stories show you an ugly side of humanity. They show how easy it is for the trusting soul to be duped and mis-spend a lot, emphasis, a lot of money.
Case 1 is a new home built up on piers, about twelve-thirteen feet. It is a beautiful house partly funded by some of our volunteers. After we returned from Gustav and began inspecting the house with the help of our great New York City team we realized the supporting girders under the exterior load bearing exterior walls are crushing! Why?
A close look shows that the builder, using very strong, engineered truss-girders for the floor, extended them out to where the exterior load bearing beams should be. Rather that using the called out doubled 2x12 LVL's (laminated veneer lumber) for the exterior load girder he just used a single floor truss. On top of that, on both ends of the house, he improperly cut one of the girders which weakens them seriously.
A single girder constructed of 2x4’s is holding the entire load bearing exterior walls, essentially at least half the entire load of the house. Both front and rear girders are crushing slowly. The New York team, bless them, installed a temporary 2x12 support beam under the crushing girders that provides some arresting relief.
I decided not to hazard a self-generated solution but to bring in a PE (professional engineer) for formal assessment and recommendation for repair. While he was there we discovered not only verification of our assessment of the seriousness of the damage, but that the builder had installed some girders upside down with the surface clearly labeled TOP in large black letters facing down!
Afterwards, I received a concerned call from the PE firm asking that we immediately also install some temporary 4x4 piers under the 2x12 along with a second 2x12 until they can provide a formal solution. We will do that Monday or Tuesday, as soon as I get back to the coast.
Talking with the owner I find the builder was not even a licensed contractor, he was using another contractor's number. I think he is in jail now. Great, we will get no relief from him.
I've written a little about Case 2 earlier. Perhaps this situation is even worse. The husband has been quite ill most of the last six months and has not been able even to provide comments.
The wife of the owner has been living on site and engaging various "contractors" to do plumbing, build exterior porch roofs and re-roof the house. I find it hard to describe these “contractors” as any thing more than “good old boys” but even the term “good” tries one’s patience.
A couple of months ago I had visited and assessed the cost to rebuild this home and asked, if not begged the lady not to engage contractors without checking with me until we got the funding situation clarified. Then Gustav came and went. A month ago I drive up and see that she has paid a man to put on a new roof and a local "handy man" to build an extensive porch roof around three of the four sides of the house.
As I looked from the road I saw the newly shingled roof still had a saddleback look, plus the porch roof has such a low pitch the building code (and instructions on roofing) say no way to a shingled roof. On top of that, from the road it is clear that the porch roof on the north side has a negative slope, running water towards the house.
No roofer in his right mind would put a roof on this house in this condition except to bleed money from the home owner. The whole roof is going to have to be removed to repair the damage.
But the problem is deeper. This "handyman" built the roof by attaching the roof rafters to the fascia boards on the existing roof! Furthermore he employed very large spans using undersized 2x6 rafters and joists. The rafters are bowed and eventually the fascia boards will pull loose and the roof will separate from the house.
The problem grows even deeper. As I inspected the gabled porch roof on the south side of the house I realize he has built a gabled roof without employing any truss structure, just pairs of 2x6 rafters span the space, their ends tied into one of the 2x6 rafters that is itself tied to the fasica boards on one end and sitting on an exterior vertical post on the other end. The unsupported gable rafters are opening up laterally by pushing that 2x6 off the post, it has less than another inch to go.
I could ramble on more technical detail about remaining problems associated with this porch roof, the roofing job on the house and the crummy way these two local boy have abused this woman. But I will not. I imagine she has spent more on the house than would be required to build from scratch.
I'm expecting the PE to validate my thinking, the only solution is to tear off the porch roof and the roofing and redo the whole darn thing. I'm guessing it is going to be expensive.
I remember the PE’s question. “What do you guys do down here, go around and fix these kind of bad construction jobs?” I didn’t say yes, but for a lot of our clients that is the appropriate answer. Disaster brings out the best and the worst in people.
It was all I could do to talk to her and her husband about this with the PE after we finished our inspection. I finally repeated what I'd begged earlier, "Please don't let Mr. H do any more work on this house."
Once I have the PE assessment and solution in hand I intend to talk to Mr. H. Then we will see what manner of integrity he has.
I remember an infrequently used, and therefore effectively imprinted usage of my mother. I always thought it a remarkable expression for the context she used it. It is certainly apropos here.
These guys make me so mad I could chew nails.
Monday, December 1, 2008
Day 246 - Good Gifts
The last week has been one for gifts.
We had a new truck to pick up in Louisville, the first “gift.” It is needed to pull some equipment to Texas. I flew up to Louisville and drove it back, stopping in Chattanooga on the way back to spend the Thanksgiving weekend with my mother, brother & wife and my sons, the second gift. I opened a lot of old mail including some quarterly statements on my IRA showing that there are only two positions to hold in the market right now, cash and fetal. Then the fourth gift came over two days. It turned out that somewhere in all that lurked a cold virus and it slowly picked off my eldest son early Thursday, them my youngest son early Friday, then his mother late Friday, and finally on Friday night it got me.
That virus was an interesting gift. It slowed me down so much I spent most of Friday evening, all day Saturday completing some seminary applications I’ve been working on, the fifth gift. Like a lot of things, it keeps going and going. I still have a lot of congestion. I was able to attend the service at Northside and saw a lot of old friends, and listened to one of JoeB’s last sermons at Northside.
On the way down in Mississippi I picked up the seventh gift, a religious FM station and listened to most of the complete performance of Handel’s Messiah (the soprano wasn’t as good as some I’ve heard). When I arrived back in Gulfport early Sunday evening I looked in the mail and found the next gift, a package from our church team in Uniontown, PA – a Pittsburgh Tee-shirt with all the colloquial tidbits that make it such a nice town: aht, babushka, blitzburgh, chipped ham, chitchat, dahntahn, hans, iron (as in city beer), jaggers, jumbo, jynt igle (the local supermarket), keller, nebby, pensivania, picksburgh (a favorite learned by my eldest son in his formative years), pop, sammitch, E’sliberty, spicket, stillers, stillmill, telepole, the burgh, the mon, the point, worsh, yins(or youns).
I got a call from some friends in Atlanta, the ninth, always a nice gift, and upon opening my e-mail, a tenth gift, a reply to one of my missives from a good friend, we’ll call her “H.”
Who says all gifts have to be exotic or munificent to be good? I had a nice conversation about new strategies in Mississippi while in Louisville, it was interesting to drive a Ford diesel, the virus slowed me down, a good thing (and makes me appreciate good health). I got to visit with my family. Seeing the state of my savings made me think hard about letting today’s troubles be enough. I had the pleasure to listen to Handel, a gift jogged some nice old memories about Pittsburgh, and I heard from a friend.
And this Thursday, though I have to make the drive again, I’ll hear my eldest son’s recital in the evening, then turn around the following weekend and do it again to see him graduate, giving me my twelve gifts before Christmas. So, from where do all good gifts come?
Be thankful for what you receive.
We had a new truck to pick up in Louisville, the first “gift.” It is needed to pull some equipment to Texas. I flew up to Louisville and drove it back, stopping in Chattanooga on the way back to spend the Thanksgiving weekend with my mother, brother & wife and my sons, the second gift. I opened a lot of old mail including some quarterly statements on my IRA showing that there are only two positions to hold in the market right now, cash and fetal. Then the fourth gift came over two days. It turned out that somewhere in all that lurked a cold virus and it slowly picked off my eldest son early Thursday, them my youngest son early Friday, then his mother late Friday, and finally on Friday night it got me.
That virus was an interesting gift. It slowed me down so much I spent most of Friday evening, all day Saturday completing some seminary applications I’ve been working on, the fifth gift. Like a lot of things, it keeps going and going. I still have a lot of congestion. I was able to attend the service at Northside and saw a lot of old friends, and listened to one of JoeB’s last sermons at Northside.
On the way down in Mississippi I picked up the seventh gift, a religious FM station and listened to most of the complete performance of Handel’s Messiah (the soprano wasn’t as good as some I’ve heard). When I arrived back in Gulfport early Sunday evening I looked in the mail and found the next gift, a package from our church team in Uniontown, PA – a Pittsburgh Tee-shirt with all the colloquial tidbits that make it such a nice town: aht, babushka, blitzburgh, chipped ham, chitchat, dahntahn, hans, iron (as in city beer), jaggers, jumbo, jynt igle (the local supermarket), keller, nebby, pensivania, picksburgh (a favorite learned by my eldest son in his formative years), pop, sammitch, E’sliberty, spicket, stillers, stillmill, telepole, the burgh, the mon, the point, worsh, yins(or youns).
I got a call from some friends in Atlanta, the ninth, always a nice gift, and upon opening my e-mail, a tenth gift, a reply to one of my missives from a good friend, we’ll call her “H.”
Who says all gifts have to be exotic or munificent to be good? I had a nice conversation about new strategies in Mississippi while in Louisville, it was interesting to drive a Ford diesel, the virus slowed me down, a good thing (and makes me appreciate good health). I got to visit with my family. Seeing the state of my savings made me think hard about letting today’s troubles be enough. I had the pleasure to listen to Handel, a gift jogged some nice old memories about Pittsburgh, and I heard from a friend.
And this Thursday, though I have to make the drive again, I’ll hear my eldest son’s recital in the evening, then turn around the following weekend and do it again to see him graduate, giving me my twelve gifts before Christmas. So, from where do all good gifts come?
Be thankful for what you receive.
Tuesday, November 18, 2008
Day 233 - Seven Weeks of Work
I took the time to do a retrospective of our work this Fall. I just looked at our work at Orange Grove (Gulfport) where we work on homes from Pascagoula to Pass Christian, MS. This fall we housed and utilized about 216 volunteers over seven weeks.
I tally that we have completed construction work on thirteen homes and taken a large step on two others. Thirteen families are now in homes where there is no longer worry over leaking roofs, rotting floors or window frames. They have homes where small children now sleep in "civilized" conditions, they actually have a bedroom with beds and can bathe in a shower or tub in a functioning bathroom. FEMA has been called to collect trailers, the sign of a completed job.
All this just in the eastern part of Mississippi. We have had churches from Florida, South Carolina, North Carolina, Virginia, Pennsylvania, Minnesota, and Arkansas, among others. We are so grateful. Thank you all.
I must also mention in this eastern area of Mississippi that we have an unabated flow of families and individuals who are in dire need of help as a result of damage from Katrina.
We still need your help. We have a home where there is a father with two pre-school and elementary school-aged children that a still living in a trailer while their home stands unlivable. We have the home of an elderly couple that I am desperate to get into their home by Christmas, but I have no volunteers. I may spend much of the early weeks of December hanging drywall with one of my work-site managers.
Would you consider a great Christmas gift, to forgo the chestnuts by the fire, sipped spiced cider and the gaiety of a decorated fir with wrapped presents underneath to come to Orange Grove or Pearlington in December and help us give someone a true Christmas present, the gift of love? Why can't we double that accomplishment of thirteen homes?
We have plenty of room for volunteers between now and March.
I'll try to get you a summary of our work in Pearlington in the next few days.
I tally that we have completed construction work on thirteen homes and taken a large step on two others. Thirteen families are now in homes where there is no longer worry over leaking roofs, rotting floors or window frames. They have homes where small children now sleep in "civilized" conditions, they actually have a bedroom with beds and can bathe in a shower or tub in a functioning bathroom. FEMA has been called to collect trailers, the sign of a completed job.
All this just in the eastern part of Mississippi. We have had churches from Florida, South Carolina, North Carolina, Virginia, Pennsylvania, Minnesota, and Arkansas, among others. We are so grateful. Thank you all.
I must also mention in this eastern area of Mississippi that we have an unabated flow of families and individuals who are in dire need of help as a result of damage from Katrina.
We still need your help. We have a home where there is a father with two pre-school and elementary school-aged children that a still living in a trailer while their home stands unlivable. We have the home of an elderly couple that I am desperate to get into their home by Christmas, but I have no volunteers. I may spend much of the early weeks of December hanging drywall with one of my work-site managers.
Would you consider a great Christmas gift, to forgo the chestnuts by the fire, sipped spiced cider and the gaiety of a decorated fir with wrapped presents underneath to come to Orange Grove or Pearlington in December and help us give someone a true Christmas present, the gift of love? Why can't we double that accomplishment of thirteen homes?
We have plenty of room for volunteers between now and March.
I'll try to get you a summary of our work in Pearlington in the next few days.
Monday, November 10, 2008
Day 226 - Dilemma
Well, the last few days have been a mixed bag.
First, one of the more unbelievable Presidential elections transpired six days ago. One that will most probably transform this country if we can do it before sliding back into that old cynicism that you can’t change the system.
Then, I had to use my four wheel drive twice already to get out of a ditch (in a truck whose manufacturer I do not prefer over my brother’s Dodge RAM).
Then, dear friends who have been with PDA as long as me departed for new beginnings (not a bad thing I keep telling myself).
Then, tumultuous challenges for staffing surge as strongly as ever.
Then, the imperative to aid those widows, homeless and poor sounds as fresh today as it did two millennia ago. A tragic circumstance with a homeowner repeats the past. What a week.
Here it is:
My friend Heather (see her blog: http://seektheking-pda.blogspot.com/) has been the village manager at Pearlington since last spring. She finally decided to follow the decision of Jeremy, also a good friend and who was the work site manager, to move on to the mission of the Lagniappe Presbyterian Church in Waveland.
It’s a really strong church with a committed construction effort similar to PDA’s. The members I’ve met are very gracious, have offered equipment and labor to pull our Pearlington pods out of the swamp after Gustav and Ike washed them into it. Theirs is a PCA church, but our collaborative effort shows thus far dogma can often just be a drag on friendship and fellowship when we are following a Call.
It really hurts to see Heather go, she has been one of our best managers and has a heart in the right place; the kind of person I call a “keeper.” I know her choice was hard and she struggled not only with this decision, but the greater decision of “what am I going to do next?” I’ll posit that she will find herself in seminary sooner or later.
In her next to last post she wondered, “I have sometimes joked that I wish God would post a big neon sign for me, to communicate His will.” I can only say Heather, walk the road and you’ll find the way. Or, as someone said, “If you are going to walk on water, you’ve got to get out of the boat.”
Stay close Heather, we all miss you.
Today I relived essentially a previous experience. (If you are reading these posts, you will know which one.) This repetition is an inexcusable one that on one hand makes me mad that some power repeated it and on the other makes me sad that we as a people have allowed it.
The e-mail from the case worker said simply, “Henry will you check on this case? This woman is really fearful about winter. She has no heat and has holes in her floor.”
By now, you know that I did.
I drove the twenty minutes or so to get to her home. It is out westward on I-10 towards Bay Saint Louis, not quite there, but close. I took an exit south and followed a winding road that my Google Map described, took the next turn and wandered a mile or so down a narrow road until I saw the house number on the mail box on the roadside.
There stood another mobile home, smaller, but clearly of a 1980’s vintage like the one I found in the north county a few months back. I knew before I even knocked on the door what I would find. With that air of foreboding, I knocked.
An elderly woman opened the door.
“Hi, are you Mrs. Mary Brooks? I’m Henry Paris of Presbyterian Disaster Assistance. Your case manager asked me to drop by. Do you remember my call?
She replies, “Yes,” in a coarse, faint whisper. She can only talk in a hoarse, raspy voice. An oxygen dispenser sits on the table in her living room.
“Come on in. Let me show you. Oh! I’m so worried, those idiots left me with a half-done kitchen, look at this floor, see the hole.”
There is a hole about eight or ten inches wide covered with duct tape. The kitchen has new appliances but the bar is only partially finished. The floors of this mobile home are clearly rotted. The roof sags and the roof leaks. There is evidence of mold.
“Come on, look at the living room. Over here by the TV, see how the floor gives.
“I am so afraid, I don’t have any heat except these space heaters. When I run them the circuit breakers trip. I can smell burning insulation.”
Standing in the door of the bathroom I see the floor vent is open to the ground. There is no AC ductwork here either. She leads me into her bedroom. There sits another duct open to the ground.
In a rain of cursing she rasps, “I paid that no good something $12,000 and he promised he would repair the floors and the roof, but he just disappeared.
“Look at the ceiling over on the wall next to my bed, water pours in every time it rains.
“My house was washed away by Katrina; it is completely gone. We got about twenty feet of water here. Afterwards I bought this mobile home for $4,000. My daughter said this was great, she helped me paint it and said it was a great deal."
“Mrs. Mary, how long have you lived here? When did you get this mobile home? Didn’t you have a FEMA trailer?”
“Yes I had a FEMA trailer first but they took it way.”
“Took it away? I don’t understand.”
“Well, they gave me $39,000 for a new home. I paid this mobile home dealer $20,000 for a mobile home but he hasn’t ever delivered.”
“Mrs. Mary, did you give him a check? Have you filed a criminal complaint?”
“No, I paid him cash. I carried a box with the $39,000 in it. I paid him cash right out of the box.
“I gave my poor son $5,000 to help him with his family. I gave my daughter some, and I gave some to a few others.”
“Mrs. Mary you can’t stay here. Can’t you stay with your son or daughter, or your sister?”
“My son lives in Dothan, AL and has ten kids, he can barely take care of them, hardly me. My daughter is so into drugs she doesn’t even know where she is. My sister will not take me in."
She told me about her chronic degenerative lung disease and her serious bouts of depression that required hospitalization. As we talked she lets on she has substantial mental issues. It explains her volatile emotions, teary then sobbing, later laughing.
She pointed out a small outbuilding, getting very teary again as she told me her boy friend who died two years ago, who she loved so much, used to go out there and stay to get away from her when she got so bad. It was the only time I saw her really laugh, and that only for a few seconds before she lapsed into her teary state again.
I stand there thinking of what I can say or do that will ease her mind, knowing that it is going to be almost impossible to find grant money for her. There is nothing that can be said. She got money to relocate or rebuild and with no one to give her sound advice, she lost it.
She has serious mental health issues and is living in a mobile home with no heat except three space heaters. That is the most dangerous thing you can put in a mobile home.
Isn’t here a Health and Human Services organization in Mississippi? How can her son and daughter just leave her here?
I do the math mentally. She got $30,000 from FEMA, gave her son $5,000, and some to her daughter and a few others, paid $20,000 for a mobile home that wasn’t delivered, bought this mobile home for $4,000 and then paid some would-be carpenter $12,000 to fix it, when the only “fixing” practical is to trash it or burn it and start over. That is more than the $39,000 she got from FEMA.
About a mess like this, my mother said it best:
"It makes me so mad I could chew nails."
But the anger fades as Mrs. Mary’s situation just saddens me and reduces me to impotency. I feel like sitting down on her steps and just crying for her.
It only takes a while working here to come to an accommodation of Mrs. Mary’s dilemma. Mrs. Mary is an icon for everything wrong about this hurricane’s aftermath; about how the State can sacrifice someone like Mrs. Mary in order to rebuild a port or a factory to make more jobs for better tax revenue and industrial growth; about children, about how well we live Christ’s command to help:
“…Wash yourselves; make yourselves clean; cease to do evil; learn to do good; seek justice; correct oppression; defend the fatherless; plead for the widow.” (Is 1:16-17)
One either inures oneself to Mrs. Mary’s tragedy, to the pathos of the poor and displaced and to His command; or one gives one’s soul up to the suffering and becomes one with their sorrow…and does something about it.
Peace and Grace
First, one of the more unbelievable Presidential elections transpired six days ago. One that will most probably transform this country if we can do it before sliding back into that old cynicism that you can’t change the system.
Then, I had to use my four wheel drive twice already to get out of a ditch (in a truck whose manufacturer I do not prefer over my brother’s Dodge RAM).
Then, dear friends who have been with PDA as long as me departed for new beginnings (not a bad thing I keep telling myself).
Then, tumultuous challenges for staffing surge as strongly as ever.
Then, the imperative to aid those widows, homeless and poor sounds as fresh today as it did two millennia ago. A tragic circumstance with a homeowner repeats the past. What a week.
Here it is:
My friend Heather (see her blog: http://seektheking-pda.blogspot.com/) has been the village manager at Pearlington since last spring. She finally decided to follow the decision of Jeremy, also a good friend and who was the work site manager, to move on to the mission of the Lagniappe Presbyterian Church in Waveland.
It’s a really strong church with a committed construction effort similar to PDA’s. The members I’ve met are very gracious, have offered equipment and labor to pull our Pearlington pods out of the swamp after Gustav and Ike washed them into it. Theirs is a PCA church, but our collaborative effort shows thus far dogma can often just be a drag on friendship and fellowship when we are following a Call.
It really hurts to see Heather go, she has been one of our best managers and has a heart in the right place; the kind of person I call a “keeper.” I know her choice was hard and she struggled not only with this decision, but the greater decision of “what am I going to do next?” I’ll posit that she will find herself in seminary sooner or later.
In her next to last post she wondered, “I have sometimes joked that I wish God would post a big neon sign for me, to communicate His will.” I can only say Heather, walk the road and you’ll find the way. Or, as someone said, “If you are going to walk on water, you’ve got to get out of the boat.”
Stay close Heather, we all miss you.
Today I relived essentially a previous experience. (If you are reading these posts, you will know which one.) This repetition is an inexcusable one that on one hand makes me mad that some power repeated it and on the other makes me sad that we as a people have allowed it.
The e-mail from the case worker said simply, “Henry will you check on this case? This woman is really fearful about winter. She has no heat and has holes in her floor.”
By now, you know that I did.
I drove the twenty minutes or so to get to her home. It is out westward on I-10 towards Bay Saint Louis, not quite there, but close. I took an exit south and followed a winding road that my Google Map described, took the next turn and wandered a mile or so down a narrow road until I saw the house number on the mail box on the roadside.
There stood another mobile home, smaller, but clearly of a 1980’s vintage like the one I found in the north county a few months back. I knew before I even knocked on the door what I would find. With that air of foreboding, I knocked.
An elderly woman opened the door.
“Hi, are you Mrs. Mary Brooks? I’m Henry Paris of Presbyterian Disaster Assistance. Your case manager asked me to drop by. Do you remember my call?
She replies, “Yes,” in a coarse, faint whisper. She can only talk in a hoarse, raspy voice. An oxygen dispenser sits on the table in her living room.
“Come on in. Let me show you. Oh! I’m so worried, those idiots left me with a half-done kitchen, look at this floor, see the hole.”
There is a hole about eight or ten inches wide covered with duct tape. The kitchen has new appliances but the bar is only partially finished. The floors of this mobile home are clearly rotted. The roof sags and the roof leaks. There is evidence of mold.
“Come on, look at the living room. Over here by the TV, see how the floor gives.
“I am so afraid, I don’t have any heat except these space heaters. When I run them the circuit breakers trip. I can smell burning insulation.”
Standing in the door of the bathroom I see the floor vent is open to the ground. There is no AC ductwork here either. She leads me into her bedroom. There sits another duct open to the ground.
In a rain of cursing she rasps, “I paid that no good something $12,000 and he promised he would repair the floors and the roof, but he just disappeared.
“Look at the ceiling over on the wall next to my bed, water pours in every time it rains.
“My house was washed away by Katrina; it is completely gone. We got about twenty feet of water here. Afterwards I bought this mobile home for $4,000. My daughter said this was great, she helped me paint it and said it was a great deal."
“Mrs. Mary, how long have you lived here? When did you get this mobile home? Didn’t you have a FEMA trailer?”
“Yes I had a FEMA trailer first but they took it way.”
“Took it away? I don’t understand.”
“Well, they gave me $39,000 for a new home. I paid this mobile home dealer $20,000 for a mobile home but he hasn’t ever delivered.”
“Mrs. Mary, did you give him a check? Have you filed a criminal complaint?”
“No, I paid him cash. I carried a box with the $39,000 in it. I paid him cash right out of the box.
“I gave my poor son $5,000 to help him with his family. I gave my daughter some, and I gave some to a few others.”
“Mrs. Mary you can’t stay here. Can’t you stay with your son or daughter, or your sister?”
“My son lives in Dothan, AL and has ten kids, he can barely take care of them, hardly me. My daughter is so into drugs she doesn’t even know where she is. My sister will not take me in."
She told me about her chronic degenerative lung disease and her serious bouts of depression that required hospitalization. As we talked she lets on she has substantial mental issues. It explains her volatile emotions, teary then sobbing, later laughing.
She pointed out a small outbuilding, getting very teary again as she told me her boy friend who died two years ago, who she loved so much, used to go out there and stay to get away from her when she got so bad. It was the only time I saw her really laugh, and that only for a few seconds before she lapsed into her teary state again.
I stand there thinking of what I can say or do that will ease her mind, knowing that it is going to be almost impossible to find grant money for her. There is nothing that can be said. She got money to relocate or rebuild and with no one to give her sound advice, she lost it.
She has serious mental health issues and is living in a mobile home with no heat except three space heaters. That is the most dangerous thing you can put in a mobile home.
Isn’t here a Health and Human Services organization in Mississippi? How can her son and daughter just leave her here?
I do the math mentally. She got $30,000 from FEMA, gave her son $5,000, and some to her daughter and a few others, paid $20,000 for a mobile home that wasn’t delivered, bought this mobile home for $4,000 and then paid some would-be carpenter $12,000 to fix it, when the only “fixing” practical is to trash it or burn it and start over. That is more than the $39,000 she got from FEMA.
About a mess like this, my mother said it best:
"It makes me so mad I could chew nails."
But the anger fades as Mrs. Mary’s situation just saddens me and reduces me to impotency. I feel like sitting down on her steps and just crying for her.
It only takes a while working here to come to an accommodation of Mrs. Mary’s dilemma. Mrs. Mary is an icon for everything wrong about this hurricane’s aftermath; about how the State can sacrifice someone like Mrs. Mary in order to rebuild a port or a factory to make more jobs for better tax revenue and industrial growth; about children, about how well we live Christ’s command to help:
“…Wash yourselves; make yourselves clean; cease to do evil; learn to do good; seek justice; correct oppression; defend the fatherless; plead for the widow.” (Is 1:16-17)
One either inures oneself to Mrs. Mary’s tragedy, to the pathos of the poor and displaced and to His command; or one gives one’s soul up to the suffering and becomes one with their sorrow…and does something about it.
Peace and Grace
Wednesday, November 5, 2008
Day 220 - Reflection
I remember as a young boy riding to school on segregated city buses.
I remember walking in the local five and dime store in Rome, GA, seeing the signs over the water fountains and rest rooms that said “Colored” and “White.”
I remember seeing the pictures in newspaper stories of the fire hoses, of the snarling police dogs straining on leases.
I remember that speech, “I have a dream…”
I remember the news story on TV showing Robert Kennedy lying mortally wounded on the floor of that hotel floor.
I remember the terrible news story about that terrible day in Memphis.
I remember that day when “Grant Park” meant mad-dog police going berserk with clubs against citizens protesting an insane war.
I remember Detroit burning.
I remember that day in Iowa when I thought this is a day just like the one that happened with Jimmy Carter.
I remember so many things, so many events, so many doubts and a cynicism that said a day like this might never come about.
I hear the chant, “Yes we can!”
I think, maybe this time, in reality, the torch has been passed on from one generation to another.
I only can pray that we may be that beacon, that we may be a city on the hill whose light we cannot hide under a basket, that we may be that example of goodness and justice to the world.
I hope that God may bless America, that we will hold true to his tenets.
I remember walking in the local five and dime store in Rome, GA, seeing the signs over the water fountains and rest rooms that said “Colored” and “White.”
I remember seeing the pictures in newspaper stories of the fire hoses, of the snarling police dogs straining on leases.
I remember that speech, “I have a dream…”
I remember the news story on TV showing Robert Kennedy lying mortally wounded on the floor of that hotel floor.
I remember the terrible news story about that terrible day in Memphis.
I remember that day when “Grant Park” meant mad-dog police going berserk with clubs against citizens protesting an insane war.
I remember Detroit burning.
I remember that day in Iowa when I thought this is a day just like the one that happened with Jimmy Carter.
I remember so many things, so many events, so many doubts and a cynicism that said a day like this might never come about.
I hear the chant, “Yes we can!”
I think, maybe this time, in reality, the torch has been passed on from one generation to another.
I only can pray that we may be that beacon, that we may be a city on the hill whose light we cannot hide under a basket, that we may be that example of goodness and justice to the world.
I hope that God may bless America, that we will hold true to his tenets.
Sunday, November 2, 2008
Day 217 - Old Friends (He who gathered little had no lack)
The last couple of weeks have been enjoyable. We have had crews from the Arkansas Presbytery, Fifth Ave. PC(NYC), Stillwater, Minnesota, New Bern, NC and Virginia. There were familiar faces in the New Bern group and the Arkansas group. Yesterday evening a crew from the Presbytery of Western North Carolina arrived. A lot of them are from Gastonia.
Many in each of these churches have been down three, four or five times. The last few days we were able to treat the Minnesota folks to some northern weather, lows in the evening have kissed the freezing point or hovered a little above. (I brought in my epiphylum a couple last week.).
One of the Gastonia group came to me this morning to tell me a woman had driven up in a truck and was looking for a place to stay. I went out and found her.
Standing by her truck looking in I noticed her pillow and blanket were in the reclined passenger seat. I asked her how she was doing and her story came out in bits and pieces.
“I drove over from Tallahassee and have no place to stay. “
“What are you doing in Gulfport?”
“I came over to take care of my father over in Van cleave.”
“Can’t you stay with him?”
“Well, to tell you the truth, his wife doesn’t much like me and will not let me stay there.”
“So, how can you take care of your father?”
“I came over to be sure he gets his shots. I slept in my truck last night and I am about frozen. To tell you the truth, I got drunk to warm up last night. I’m looking for a place to warm up and stay just for tonight. I think I have a room tomorrow. Do you have any place warm I could stay for today?”
I could tell she had been drinking from the strong alcohol odor about her. She probably was not in any condition to drive her truck.
“Do you want some coffee? We’ve got some in the dining tent.”
“Sure, that sounds good.”
“What do you want in it?”
“Just black, please.”
She was wiping tears from her eyes when I brought out the cup of coffee and gave it to her.
“Don’t you want something to eat, we have cereal and toast in the tent?”
“I just need a place to cry.”
“Well, come on in the tent and sit, you can warm up.”
She came in and sat down, still crying a little and dabbing her eyes with the paper towel she was holding in the truck.
“Are you sure you don’t want anything to eat? We’ve got toast.”
“That sounds good, I could use some toast and butter.”
I made the toast while I prepared my own to eat with my oatmeal. While she ate her toast and I my oatmeal we talked some more.
“So what brings you to Gulfport?”
“Oh, I used to live here.”
Her story was getting a little confusing so I asked, “I thought you said you came from Tallahassee?”
“No, Pas Christian. When Katrina hit it washed me up past I-10, I treaded water and swam up to the Lutheran emergency center.”
I was having a little difficulty believing all this since I know a little about the surge, but I just listened.
Since it wasn’t wise for her to drive in her condition I thought I might buy an hour or so inviting her to our church service. I went to look for the pastor. Having no luck (I was an hour early, the clocks turned back last night) I returned to the dining tent to see her heading for her car.
“I have to tell you that we don’t really have any good place for you to stay in the Village other than our pods. But, there is a Salvation Army Shelter in Pascagoula that takes in folks that don’t have a place to stay.”
“How far is that about 40 miles or so? No, I don’t guess the gas in this old truck would make it that far.” She got in the truck and said, “ I just wanted to use your facilities.”
She slammed the door and left.
In the tent I bumped into the team leader for the Gastonia group. We talked a little about the homeless issue and how we served the homeless during my time in Atlanta at Central Presbyterian Church. I mentioned that our associate pastor, Kim Richter, had the pastor’s position in Ashville, Westminster Church, I believe. Not only has this person met Kim (he participated in a class she taught in his Presbytery) but he has read a book by her husband, Don.
As I say, it’s a small world, a shrinking denomination, or I’m near some gravitational sinkhole that pulls my past along with me.
Later in our church service today one of the reading was from Second Corinthians (8:8ff) where Paul talked to the poor Macedonian Church. It seems apropos.
“I say this not as a command but to prove by the earnestness of others that your love is also genuine…it is best to complete what you began so that your readiness in desiring is matched by your completing it with what you have. For if the readiness is there, it is acceptable to complete it according to what a man has, not according to what he has not… I do not mean that others should be eased and you burdened but that as a matter of equality your abundance at the present time should supply their want so that their abundance may supply your want… As it is written, ‘He who gathered much had nothing over, and he who gathered little had no lack.’”
Peace and Grace
Many in each of these churches have been down three, four or five times. The last few days we were able to treat the Minnesota folks to some northern weather, lows in the evening have kissed the freezing point or hovered a little above. (I brought in my epiphylum a couple last week.).
One of the Gastonia group came to me this morning to tell me a woman had driven up in a truck and was looking for a place to stay. I went out and found her.
Standing by her truck looking in I noticed her pillow and blanket were in the reclined passenger seat. I asked her how she was doing and her story came out in bits and pieces.
“I drove over from Tallahassee and have no place to stay. “
“What are you doing in Gulfport?”
“I came over to take care of my father over in Van cleave.”
“Can’t you stay with him?”
“Well, to tell you the truth, his wife doesn’t much like me and will not let me stay there.”
“So, how can you take care of your father?”
“I came over to be sure he gets his shots. I slept in my truck last night and I am about frozen. To tell you the truth, I got drunk to warm up last night. I’m looking for a place to warm up and stay just for tonight. I think I have a room tomorrow. Do you have any place warm I could stay for today?”
I could tell she had been drinking from the strong alcohol odor about her. She probably was not in any condition to drive her truck.
“Do you want some coffee? We’ve got some in the dining tent.”
“Sure, that sounds good.”
“What do you want in it?”
“Just black, please.”
She was wiping tears from her eyes when I brought out the cup of coffee and gave it to her.
“Don’t you want something to eat, we have cereal and toast in the tent?”
“I just need a place to cry.”
“Well, come on in the tent and sit, you can warm up.”
She came in and sat down, still crying a little and dabbing her eyes with the paper towel she was holding in the truck.
“Are you sure you don’t want anything to eat? We’ve got toast.”
“That sounds good, I could use some toast and butter.”
I made the toast while I prepared my own to eat with my oatmeal. While she ate her toast and I my oatmeal we talked some more.
“So what brings you to Gulfport?”
“Oh, I used to live here.”
Her story was getting a little confusing so I asked, “I thought you said you came from Tallahassee?”
“No, Pas Christian. When Katrina hit it washed me up past I-10, I treaded water and swam up to the Lutheran emergency center.”
I was having a little difficulty believing all this since I know a little about the surge, but I just listened.
Since it wasn’t wise for her to drive in her condition I thought I might buy an hour or so inviting her to our church service. I went to look for the pastor. Having no luck (I was an hour early, the clocks turned back last night) I returned to the dining tent to see her heading for her car.
“I have to tell you that we don’t really have any good place for you to stay in the Village other than our pods. But, there is a Salvation Army Shelter in Pascagoula that takes in folks that don’t have a place to stay.”
“How far is that about 40 miles or so? No, I don’t guess the gas in this old truck would make it that far.” She got in the truck and said, “ I just wanted to use your facilities.”
She slammed the door and left.
In the tent I bumped into the team leader for the Gastonia group. We talked a little about the homeless issue and how we served the homeless during my time in Atlanta at Central Presbyterian Church. I mentioned that our associate pastor, Kim Richter, had the pastor’s position in Ashville, Westminster Church, I believe. Not only has this person met Kim (he participated in a class she taught in his Presbytery) but he has read a book by her husband, Don.
As I say, it’s a small world, a shrinking denomination, or I’m near some gravitational sinkhole that pulls my past along with me.
Later in our church service today one of the reading was from Second Corinthians (8:8ff) where Paul talked to the poor Macedonian Church. It seems apropos.
“I say this not as a command but to prove by the earnestness of others that your love is also genuine…it is best to complete what you began so that your readiness in desiring is matched by your completing it with what you have. For if the readiness is there, it is acceptable to complete it according to what a man has, not according to what he has not… I do not mean that others should be eased and you burdened but that as a matter of equality your abundance at the present time should supply their want so that their abundance may supply your want… As it is written, ‘He who gathered much had nothing over, and he who gathered little had no lack.’”
Peace and Grace
Sunday, October 26, 2008
Day 210 - Fathers and Sons I
Turgenev’s novel wrestled with a different focus than my two stories of fathers and sons. I probably came away from Turgenev with a different idea that the pundits. Turgenev dealt with sin and redemption I suppose. He used the relation of fathers and sons to critique the loss of hope (nihilism) in society. My characters wrestle the obligation of love reflected by the dedication, or obligation, of sons to father and mother only within a world of redemption. Maybe this story does in a strained way follow Turgenev’s tact?
I met Hezekiah, Ruth and their son Joseph early last summer. Our case manager liaison had asked me to visit and determine what the state of the house was in order to determine if we could help. I found more than a house in pretty bad shape. I found a story of love and dedication.
There were photographs on the walls that hearkened back to the 1970’s. On the walls hung images of well dressed mother and father with children. Photographs of smiling, newly wed husband and wife. Another contained a fairly young man in military uniform. There were others of newly graduated high school students; some of grandchildren. All the photographs broadcast a fully lived, rich family life. There was a lot of double-knit leisure suits therefore the photographs surely date to the 1970’s.
The house now was darkened. The limited electric power barely allows a window air conditioning unit. There is an old screw-type fuse box with maybe 60 amp service. They have to use a gas stove and hot water heater because more electric appliances blow the fuses. How many of you remember a fuse box?
The walls and ceiling were water stained. Outside soffits had been repaired but only barely. I learned the water damage came from the severely wind damaged roof by Katrina. Insurance had allowed it to be replaced, but only after a deluge of a lot of water. Both Hezekiah and Ruth have had mold-related illness. Ruth and Hezekiah have had heart attacks.
I met Joseph the son that day. He is probably near my age, maybe ten years younger. He came down to help his parents right after Katrina. He gave up a nice business he had started in Chicago and holds two more menial jobs here in town to do it.
Ruth and Hezekiah had applied and been approved for grant application and were notified by the local long term recovery organization that they were qualified but subsequently they were denied funding by the funding agency. This roller coaster experience happened twice over the last three years. Ruth is beaten up by it. She has given up hope of ever seeing the home repaired, "Yes, Mr. Henry, I'll believe we are going to see this house fixed when its done. We've heard all this so many times before."
We went ahead and applied for grant funding. Our first application was almost denied due to questions about lack of enough income. Luckily we were able to add some critical pieces to the application about the commitment Joseph has towards his parents long term care. Thankfully the grant was approved. It was one of my more recently satisfying moments to call Joseph and tell him we had funding.
Our objective is to strip the walls and flooring, rewire, drywall and refurbish. We will have to cover some of the electrical and HVAC costs but it looks really good. We leaped into the work as fast as we could amass volunteers to the job; building piles of stripped interior out in the yard faster than the dumpster people could keep up. Ohio, Indiana, New York, Pennsylvania all helped.
When one spends a lot of time in a home doing this kind of renovation, one learns a lot about family in conversation with the homeowner. Grandparents raised Hezekiah. They lived in this old four room house built of heart pine eighty to one hundred years ago. When we stripped the interior of the house down to it studs, we revealed a double fireplace for living room and front bedroom and a second double chimney for what surely was a wood or coal burning kitchen stove and a potbellied stove in the rear bedroom.
The fireplaces had to be the sole source of heat; there is no central air. It is obvious that gas service was installed much later. The gas came because the only electrical service was an old screw-in fuse box with four circuits rated at about 40 or 60 amps total. They couldn’t run an air conditioner and an electric stove at the same time. Forget a washing machine and dryer.
I don’t know about Hezekiah’s parents. I haven’t been with Hezekiah or Joseph at a good time to ask about them. It is a mystery I hope I will resolve later and fill this detail in.
What image I have of the early years is from details from Hezekiah and Ruth, and later, almost accidentally, by Joseph. After we stripped the walls Hezekiah brought Mrs. Ruth by to see the progress. She says she hasn’t seen that old double fireplace since before she and Hezekiah were married. She insists we keep the fireplaces open.
When we began Joseph said he wanted to enlarge the bathroom, to eliminate a short hallway to increase the size of the bath. The bathroom enlargement seemed difficult and unnecessary to us. We would have to change a lot of plumbing and do extra framing generally making the job a little more complicated.
We discussed this with Hezekiah he quickly agreed with us that this adding unnecessary complications. We left that discussion comfortable that we could revert to the old plan of recreating a better bathroom in the same space. That is, until Joseph dropped by after he got off work.
Joseph had a firm objection to our plan to just redo the existing floor plan. He had a clear objective. As he described his ideas his carried a long-range concept for what this home needed to be was obvious.
He talked about how Hezekiah had taken care of his grandparents when they were very ill and not capable of caring for themselves. He said the bathroom had to be bigger with tub/shower separated from sink and vanity so there was room to maneuver. Maneuver what?
“When my grandparents got really sick, my dad took care of them. He had to bathe them when they got so sick they couldn’t do it by themselves."
I realized he was saying that his grandparents lived in their home well after they could manage daily life, after the time when incontinence soiled both bed and parent. They lived into the time where the gentle hands cleansed both parent and child, one physically and the other spiritually.
Joseph talked about this in such a matter-of-fact way. He wanted that bathroom big enough so it could manage a wheelchair and allow him to clean a parent who probably was still enough in control of faculties to be mortified by the events but so thankfully grateful for a loving son to spare them embarrassment of strangers doing the task. They are a close, loving family and the loving intimacy required to do this was so evidently a natural commitment to parents in need present for both Joseph and Hezekiah in their own times.
I realized there is a profound love and commitment in this African-American family; a truly committed love between son and father and mother. I cannot walk away except to feel daunted by this love. A love that I know is absent in some families of of my protégés; a love that cannot but tear at my own insecurity about facing this eventual difficult fate. Will I have the strength to match this love between this son and parents?
Joseph makes me remember my own pain. I remember sitting in a hospital waiting room of an ICU unit, of sitting with my mother and brother; all of talking with my daddy’s brother about an irreversible decision we faced. I remember hearing my voice distantly agreeing with the others, “Yes I agree. We need to do this.”
I remember subsequently sitting on my father’s bedside in the hospital looking at the ventilator tube taped to his mouth, at the bruise and bandage on his head where he had fallen in the hospital room the night before causing an irreversible hemorrhage; of placing my hand on his startlingly cold skin wondering where the blanket was because he had to be cold; of hearing the doctor say there was no hope due to the hemorrhage; of talking to him telling him through tears of how much I loved him hoping he would hear and hoping for some reaction from him, of memories of all the times we all spent together. All these things washed over me while I talked to him in a low voice because I was inexplicably embarrassed by the near presence of the ICU nursing station. I remember that long goodbye as clearly as if it were happening today.
Joseph, a brother in arms stronger than I am. Joseph is an aspiration for us all and an object lesson in the love of father and son.
I met Hezekiah, Ruth and their son Joseph early last summer. Our case manager liaison had asked me to visit and determine what the state of the house was in order to determine if we could help. I found more than a house in pretty bad shape. I found a story of love and dedication.
There were photographs on the walls that hearkened back to the 1970’s. On the walls hung images of well dressed mother and father with children. Photographs of smiling, newly wed husband and wife. Another contained a fairly young man in military uniform. There were others of newly graduated high school students; some of grandchildren. All the photographs broadcast a fully lived, rich family life. There was a lot of double-knit leisure suits therefore the photographs surely date to the 1970’s.
The house now was darkened. The limited electric power barely allows a window air conditioning unit. There is an old screw-type fuse box with maybe 60 amp service. They have to use a gas stove and hot water heater because more electric appliances blow the fuses. How many of you remember a fuse box?
The walls and ceiling were water stained. Outside soffits had been repaired but only barely. I learned the water damage came from the severely wind damaged roof by Katrina. Insurance had allowed it to be replaced, but only after a deluge of a lot of water. Both Hezekiah and Ruth have had mold-related illness. Ruth and Hezekiah have had heart attacks.
I met Joseph the son that day. He is probably near my age, maybe ten years younger. He came down to help his parents right after Katrina. He gave up a nice business he had started in Chicago and holds two more menial jobs here in town to do it.
Ruth and Hezekiah had applied and been approved for grant application and were notified by the local long term recovery organization that they were qualified but subsequently they were denied funding by the funding agency. This roller coaster experience happened twice over the last three years. Ruth is beaten up by it. She has given up hope of ever seeing the home repaired, "Yes, Mr. Henry, I'll believe we are going to see this house fixed when its done. We've heard all this so many times before."
We went ahead and applied for grant funding. Our first application was almost denied due to questions about lack of enough income. Luckily we were able to add some critical pieces to the application about the commitment Joseph has towards his parents long term care. Thankfully the grant was approved. It was one of my more recently satisfying moments to call Joseph and tell him we had funding.
Our objective is to strip the walls and flooring, rewire, drywall and refurbish. We will have to cover some of the electrical and HVAC costs but it looks really good. We leaped into the work as fast as we could amass volunteers to the job; building piles of stripped interior out in the yard faster than the dumpster people could keep up. Ohio, Indiana, New York, Pennsylvania all helped.
When one spends a lot of time in a home doing this kind of renovation, one learns a lot about family in conversation with the homeowner. Grandparents raised Hezekiah. They lived in this old four room house built of heart pine eighty to one hundred years ago. When we stripped the interior of the house down to it studs, we revealed a double fireplace for living room and front bedroom and a second double chimney for what surely was a wood or coal burning kitchen stove and a potbellied stove in the rear bedroom.
The fireplaces had to be the sole source of heat; there is no central air. It is obvious that gas service was installed much later. The gas came because the only electrical service was an old screw-in fuse box with four circuits rated at about 40 or 60 amps total. They couldn’t run an air conditioner and an electric stove at the same time. Forget a washing machine and dryer.
I don’t know about Hezekiah’s parents. I haven’t been with Hezekiah or Joseph at a good time to ask about them. It is a mystery I hope I will resolve later and fill this detail in.
What image I have of the early years is from details from Hezekiah and Ruth, and later, almost accidentally, by Joseph. After we stripped the walls Hezekiah brought Mrs. Ruth by to see the progress. She says she hasn’t seen that old double fireplace since before she and Hezekiah were married. She insists we keep the fireplaces open.
When we began Joseph said he wanted to enlarge the bathroom, to eliminate a short hallway to increase the size of the bath. The bathroom enlargement seemed difficult and unnecessary to us. We would have to change a lot of plumbing and do extra framing generally making the job a little more complicated.
We discussed this with Hezekiah he quickly agreed with us that this adding unnecessary complications. We left that discussion comfortable that we could revert to the old plan of recreating a better bathroom in the same space. That is, until Joseph dropped by after he got off work.
Joseph had a firm objection to our plan to just redo the existing floor plan. He had a clear objective. As he described his ideas his carried a long-range concept for what this home needed to be was obvious.
He talked about how Hezekiah had taken care of his grandparents when they were very ill and not capable of caring for themselves. He said the bathroom had to be bigger with tub/shower separated from sink and vanity so there was room to maneuver. Maneuver what?
“When my grandparents got really sick, my dad took care of them. He had to bathe them when they got so sick they couldn’t do it by themselves."
I realized he was saying that his grandparents lived in their home well after they could manage daily life, after the time when incontinence soiled both bed and parent. They lived into the time where the gentle hands cleansed both parent and child, one physically and the other spiritually.
Joseph talked about this in such a matter-of-fact way. He wanted that bathroom big enough so it could manage a wheelchair and allow him to clean a parent who probably was still enough in control of faculties to be mortified by the events but so thankfully grateful for a loving son to spare them embarrassment of strangers doing the task. They are a close, loving family and the loving intimacy required to do this was so evidently a natural commitment to parents in need present for both Joseph and Hezekiah in their own times.
I realized there is a profound love and commitment in this African-American family; a truly committed love between son and father and mother. I cannot walk away except to feel daunted by this love. A love that I know is absent in some families of of my protégés; a love that cannot but tear at my own insecurity about facing this eventual difficult fate. Will I have the strength to match this love between this son and parents?
Joseph makes me remember my own pain. I remember sitting in a hospital waiting room of an ICU unit, of sitting with my mother and brother; all of talking with my daddy’s brother about an irreversible decision we faced. I remember hearing my voice distantly agreeing with the others, “Yes I agree. We need to do this.”
I remember subsequently sitting on my father’s bedside in the hospital looking at the ventilator tube taped to his mouth, at the bruise and bandage on his head where he had fallen in the hospital room the night before causing an irreversible hemorrhage; of placing my hand on his startlingly cold skin wondering where the blanket was because he had to be cold; of hearing the doctor say there was no hope due to the hemorrhage; of talking to him telling him through tears of how much I loved him hoping he would hear and hoping for some reaction from him, of memories of all the times we all spent together. All these things washed over me while I talked to him in a low voice because I was inexplicably embarrassed by the near presence of the ICU nursing station. I remember that long goodbye as clearly as if it were happening today.
Joseph, a brother in arms stronger than I am. Joseph is an aspiration for us all and an object lesson in the love of father and son.
Saturday, October 18, 2008
Day 202 - Tipping points
How long does a couple live together to get to the point that their common history usurps their past. The point where more of life has been spent in the past than in the future? How long does it take for each little glory, each little intimacy, each little spat and argument to edge out slowly, slowly a step at a time into a common conscious?
Do these little instances draw from some personal, emotional change purse only to grow with interest as they fill a common experience? There must be a tipping point where the past has filled the common cup so much that the rest of life together is as much a reflection of the past as the future.
For the lucky it is only remembered small glories that fill the cup, for the less fortunate it is the spats and arguments that shape the future. For the blessed, they possess a humor that glues all those glories and arguments together in a common treasured experience greater than their separate lives.
Pauline and Larry Brady, a sixty-ish couple, survived Katrina. It looks probably so did their marriage.
Years ago Larry found this house nestled on a high ground near the Pearl River. The house has to be over a hundred years old. Since it was so old and free of any obvious past flood damage, Larry convinced Pauline to buy it. They never worried about hurricanes since the house had this history. They build an addition to it and enjoyed the quiet, pastoral existence of Pearlington until late August 2005.
When we came upon the house it stood unused except to hold boxes and boxes of floor-ravaged possessions of Pauline, Larry and daughter; and that musty smell. Everything was moldy or decaying. When one looks through the boxes there are old paperback books, childhood books, certificates of accomplishment, photographs, rusty tools, toys, almost anything a family might collect over twenty or thirty years of living together.
Our job is to clean out the house and assist Larry and Pauline to refurbish the house into a new home. The first step is work with the homeowner to remove all the unnecessary contents and strip damaged walls.
While we cleaned it out Larry would say, “Let’s get this done before Pauline gets over here. Save that box, put those books over here so we can put them in that storage shed out back.”
Larry agonized over every piece of life we picked up to toss into the pile out on the lawn to wait on the delivery of the dumpster. Larry's decisions were agonizing; each one seemed to erase or save a piece of life.
On other occasions while we cleaned it out Pauline would say, “Let’s get this done before Larry gets over here. Toss that box, put those books over there in your wheel barrow so we can put them in the dumpster pile out front.”
Pauline never thought twice about her decision, her directives to toss those pieces of the past into the pile on the lawn to wait on the delivery of the dumpster had the surety of the mind of an Islamic prince swinging a raised scimitar to decapitate an infidel.
After our crew finished this labor last week, I visited the home today with my two wonderful new work site managers, Jessie and Michael.
“We better call Larry and Pauline before we drop by.”
I fished my cell phone out of its holster and dialed.
A woman’s voice answered, “Hello?”
“Hello Mrs. Brady. This is Henry, we are in the area and wondered if we could drop by and see how the cleanup is going?”
“Who?”
“Henry Paris with PDA. Remember, I came by a few weeks ago.”
“Oh yes. Yes, come on over.”
We were only about a half-mile from the house.
“OK, we will be there is a few minutes.”
As I pulled into their driveway, Larry was walking out beside a newly stacked pile of firewood. He waved hello and walked with a spry step towards us. Larry is the kind of guy who has probably ten or twenty unfinished projects, each a magnificent dream, each easily achievable because the fellow is an engineer, but his list grows far faster than his hands and feet can manage. He plans to redo this house himself. Our job is to keep him from self-destruction and do much of it for him.
He leads us to the house and unlocks the front door. I walk in and am quite impressed. The house is emptied of most of the things that filled every room the last time I was here. We walk through remarking and discussing all the little architectural oddities. The firebrick pad in the rear bedroom and the cutout in the wood wall paneling that indicate an old pot bellied stove must have stood there. We note the fireplace hidden in the wall in the kitchen.
The house itself built of old rough-cut heartwood, even the interior wall paneling. This paneling and the massive cypress girders and joists withstood Katrina’s soaking quite well. There are a few spots of mold to manage, but in Larry’s view, and one I do not entirely oppose, many of the rooms can be salvaged. Pauline on the other hand is on record as saying “Strip it all and put drywall up!”
Again, the questions, over three years old, still lurk below the surface of conversation. As usuaI I ask, “Mr. Brady, did you and Pauline stay behind? How high did the water get in here?”
Mr. Brady points towards the ceiling in the side room that we are standing and states, “Well the house is sort of warped out of level,” and walks into the dining room for a better display.
He extends his arm and touches the wall about 3 or 4 inches below the ceiling. “The water came up about here,” pointing towards the remains of an electrical box in the ceiling of the room. He continues, “It beat the dickens out of the chandelier that used to be here.”
“So, you and your wife decided to wait out the storm and not leave?”
“Yes. This place had never been flooded as long as anyone can remember, I thought we’d be safe.”
“What did you do when the water started rising?”
“When the extension I built on the rear of the house began to shift as water rose up to about the floor level, I started to worry that this might be bad.” He pointed to the empty patio behind the house. Karina floated the extension to the house away to some other part of the neighborhood.
“We went up into the attic.”
“What would you have done had the water risen even higher?”
“We might have found ourselves swimming in the neighborhood. I’d have broken out the louvers in the attic vent in the end of roof to get out.”
I stood here imaging this situation of Larry and Pauline crouching on that old dirty attic over ten feet of swirling salty floodwater.
“Larry, I’ll bet your wife was screaming, ‘I can’t believe you convinced me to stay. We should have gotten out of Pearlington when they told us to leave; we are both going to die. I can’t believe I agreed to let you buy this house.’ ”
“Yes, you are pretty much right, that’s about what she said. Thank goodness we can laugh about it now," he said with a hint on uncertainty in his voice.
Do these little instances draw from some personal, emotional change purse only to grow with interest as they fill a common experience? There must be a tipping point where the past has filled the common cup so much that the rest of life together is as much a reflection of the past as the future.
For the lucky it is only remembered small glories that fill the cup, for the less fortunate it is the spats and arguments that shape the future. For the blessed, they possess a humor that glues all those glories and arguments together in a common treasured experience greater than their separate lives.
Pauline and Larry Brady, a sixty-ish couple, survived Katrina. It looks probably so did their marriage.
Years ago Larry found this house nestled on a high ground near the Pearl River. The house has to be over a hundred years old. Since it was so old and free of any obvious past flood damage, Larry convinced Pauline to buy it. They never worried about hurricanes since the house had this history. They build an addition to it and enjoyed the quiet, pastoral existence of Pearlington until late August 2005.
When we came upon the house it stood unused except to hold boxes and boxes of floor-ravaged possessions of Pauline, Larry and daughter; and that musty smell. Everything was moldy or decaying. When one looks through the boxes there are old paperback books, childhood books, certificates of accomplishment, photographs, rusty tools, toys, almost anything a family might collect over twenty or thirty years of living together.
Our job is to clean out the house and assist Larry and Pauline to refurbish the house into a new home. The first step is work with the homeowner to remove all the unnecessary contents and strip damaged walls.
While we cleaned it out Larry would say, “Let’s get this done before Pauline gets over here. Save that box, put those books over here so we can put them in that storage shed out back.”
Larry agonized over every piece of life we picked up to toss into the pile out on the lawn to wait on the delivery of the dumpster. Larry's decisions were agonizing; each one seemed to erase or save a piece of life.
On other occasions while we cleaned it out Pauline would say, “Let’s get this done before Larry gets over here. Toss that box, put those books over there in your wheel barrow so we can put them in the dumpster pile out front.”
Pauline never thought twice about her decision, her directives to toss those pieces of the past into the pile on the lawn to wait on the delivery of the dumpster had the surety of the mind of an Islamic prince swinging a raised scimitar to decapitate an infidel.
After our crew finished this labor last week, I visited the home today with my two wonderful new work site managers, Jessie and Michael.
“We better call Larry and Pauline before we drop by.”
I fished my cell phone out of its holster and dialed.
A woman’s voice answered, “Hello?”
“Hello Mrs. Brady. This is Henry, we are in the area and wondered if we could drop by and see how the cleanup is going?”
“Who?”
“Henry Paris with PDA. Remember, I came by a few weeks ago.”
“Oh yes. Yes, come on over.”
We were only about a half-mile from the house.
“OK, we will be there is a few minutes.”
As I pulled into their driveway, Larry was walking out beside a newly stacked pile of firewood. He waved hello and walked with a spry step towards us. Larry is the kind of guy who has probably ten or twenty unfinished projects, each a magnificent dream, each easily achievable because the fellow is an engineer, but his list grows far faster than his hands and feet can manage. He plans to redo this house himself. Our job is to keep him from self-destruction and do much of it for him.
He leads us to the house and unlocks the front door. I walk in and am quite impressed. The house is emptied of most of the things that filled every room the last time I was here. We walk through remarking and discussing all the little architectural oddities. The firebrick pad in the rear bedroom and the cutout in the wood wall paneling that indicate an old pot bellied stove must have stood there. We note the fireplace hidden in the wall in the kitchen.
The house itself built of old rough-cut heartwood, even the interior wall paneling. This paneling and the massive cypress girders and joists withstood Katrina’s soaking quite well. There are a few spots of mold to manage, but in Larry’s view, and one I do not entirely oppose, many of the rooms can be salvaged. Pauline on the other hand is on record as saying “Strip it all and put drywall up!”
Again, the questions, over three years old, still lurk below the surface of conversation. As usuaI I ask, “Mr. Brady, did you and Pauline stay behind? How high did the water get in here?”
Mr. Brady points towards the ceiling in the side room that we are standing and states, “Well the house is sort of warped out of level,” and walks into the dining room for a better display.
He extends his arm and touches the wall about 3 or 4 inches below the ceiling. “The water came up about here,” pointing towards the remains of an electrical box in the ceiling of the room. He continues, “It beat the dickens out of the chandelier that used to be here.”
“So, you and your wife decided to wait out the storm and not leave?”
“Yes. This place had never been flooded as long as anyone can remember, I thought we’d be safe.”
“What did you do when the water started rising?”
“When the extension I built on the rear of the house began to shift as water rose up to about the floor level, I started to worry that this might be bad.” He pointed to the empty patio behind the house. Karina floated the extension to the house away to some other part of the neighborhood.
“We went up into the attic.”
“What would you have done had the water risen even higher?”
“We might have found ourselves swimming in the neighborhood. I’d have broken out the louvers in the attic vent in the end of roof to get out.”
I stood here imaging this situation of Larry and Pauline crouching on that old dirty attic over ten feet of swirling salty floodwater.
“Larry, I’ll bet your wife was screaming, ‘I can’t believe you convinced me to stay. We should have gotten out of Pearlington when they told us to leave; we are both going to die. I can’t believe I agreed to let you buy this house.’ ”
“Yes, you are pretty much right, that’s about what she said. Thank goodness we can laugh about it now," he said with a hint on uncertainty in his voice.
Friday, October 10, 2008
Day 194 - The Fire in My Bosom Burns My Clothes
The crowd is restive. The building is full. It is hot, the light is not very good and everyone is sweaty and uncomfortable. A series of speakers have previously mounted the stage and warmed up the crowd. Great men stood and proclaimed great hope for the future and woe to the crowd for its behavior. One notable man, Jeremiah, quoted THE LORD, “I am sick of your sacrifices, your burnt offerings; why are you not caring for the poor, freeing the captives and honoring the stranger in your land? Circumcise your heart to me lest my wrath go forth like fire!”
He had hardly finished speaking when a voice shouted from the other side of the hall, “Thou art my King and my God who ordained victories for Jacob, through you we push down our foes, for in our own strength we cannot trust and we continually give thanks to you; yet you have cast us off and abased us, made us a laughingstock among the peoples of the world. Why do you hide your face? Why do you forget our oppression? Rise up and come to our help in the name of your steadfast love!”
Then another voice from the rear of the auditorium shouted back, “Can a man carry fire in his bosom and his clothes not get burned? Wise men lay up knowledge, but the babbling fool brings ruin near.”
After the final speaker harangues the crowd, many faces among them are red with anger and frustration. Shaking fists are raised. The ring of shouts of “Blasphemy! Blasphemy!” rain about this final speaker, the insane one named Ezekiel, as he steps down from the stage towards his seat in the front row.
Now, as the crowd’s shouting diminishes suddenly a deafening sound from nowhere and everywhere as if it were a whirlwind proclaims, “I thought I would pour out my wrath upon you and spend my anger against you in the wilderness. But, I withheld my hand and acted for the sake of my name, that I would not be profaned in the sight of the nations in whose sight I brought you out. Moreover, I gave you statutes that were not good and ordinances by which you could not live; and I defiled you through your own gifts by demanding you offer to the fire all your first born so I might horrify you, so you will know I AM THE LORD.”
The organizers panic. They try to keep control of the proceedings by hurrying the announcer of the fight onto the stage with microphone in hand. He begins, "Ladies and Gentlemen, in one corner we will have The Innocent standing in for the goodness and kindness of God and human virtue. In the other corner we will have his Adversary standing in defense of the Psalms (especially the 44th), and wisdom of Proverbs. The noise of the crowd increases. Out in the seats a heckler with “King Lear” written across the front of his baseball hat sputters at this spectacle and shouts in a strong bass voice, “As flies to wanton boys, are we to the gods. They kill us for their sport."
In the wings off stage-right, The One called God smiles with a self-satisfied knowledge and casts his gamble with The Adversary who is standing on stage-left. The Innocent, who in actuality is a stranger from another land, has learned of this God and has come to love and honor Him more greatly than the people in this audience. The Innocent stands on the street at the entrance to the auditorium listening to the noise and hurrah within but is not quite able to make out what is said. He enters and stands at the top of the central aisle that leads down to the stage. One of the organizers recognizes the man and bids his fellows to drag him to the stage, now converted to a ring for the fight.
Satan considers his wager, ”Of what value is faith if practiced only for reward?” He leaves the building, smiling with a self-satisfied knowledge.
Thirty-seven (24) rounds later the Innocent is no more an innocent but a beaten, defeated man who still fights to deny his newly found knowledge that there can be no assurance of reward for the loyal servant; that this God can do ill to a good man. Yet he still clings to his faith in God, even with the knowledge that the crowd has splayed and killed his family and burnt his home and possessions at God’s instigation by a wager with…can it be Himself? Cowering and fearful, the Innocent clings to that Faith in Him even though his Adversary has broken his body.
Now carried by the organizers from the ring into the wings, he lies bloodied and diseased. He has only shouted to God that this cannot be without cause and demands of the Adversary to explain what ill the Innocent has done to merit this defeat.
Unaware a nearby microphone is still turned on, The Gambler still stands in the wings of stage-right, stunned that he has allowed this horribly cruel and capricious thing of his Own to unfold. A tear rolls down the cheek of The Gambler as the Innocent demands this explanation; but as fast as the tear forms, an impulse of unbounded fury rises in his chest. He shouts,” It is so because I wanted it so!”
This final fury cows the Innocent. He is too terrified and too devastated to speak boldly hearing that this ill-made reward for goodness only results from capriciousness. He is determined however to dare a very quietly and a very carefully crafted acknowledgement, “I now see You for who You are and can only fear for us all.”
The crowd staring at the empty stage is stunned and staggered by this argument coming from the PA system. People stand up uneasily. Finally those towards the rear begin to file out. As they leave, a woman turns to her husband and whispers, “This can’t be it. It can’t be all there is, can it? Is this it?” The husband struggles for words, finally muttering under his breath, “No, it can’t be. There must be hope for reward.” Another fellow in the departing crowd who hears the man’s reply to his wife says, “Hey, don’t be too zealous, or too rowdy, find the middle ground. Don’t rock the boat or you’ll get stepped on.”
There in the wings the Innocent struggles to his feet and the Gambler stands in silence. Both are too uncomfortable to look at each other, for their misery is great. Both are devastated by what has unfolded. They squirm in the pain of self-acknowledgement, the Gambler in recognition of who He is, the Innocent in submissive recognition of who God is. Finally The Gambler turns to leave. As He passes the Innocent Man, he speaks tenderly, “I stand by my Word. I will not restore your family but I remember Second Isaiah’s words, today you shall receive double compensation for My sin. Now, I must go away to think of what we have done here today.” He bows his head and his anger is kindled against the words of the crowd, but he repents.
He will be heard no more for 500 years, when at last he will decide finally enough is enough. He will come to say, “I do love these people as I love Myself. I do forgive and I do repent for you are a part of me.”
Amen
Henry Paris, copyright October 6, 2006
He had hardly finished speaking when a voice shouted from the other side of the hall, “Thou art my King and my God who ordained victories for Jacob, through you we push down our foes, for in our own strength we cannot trust and we continually give thanks to you; yet you have cast us off and abased us, made us a laughingstock among the peoples of the world. Why do you hide your face? Why do you forget our oppression? Rise up and come to our help in the name of your steadfast love!”
Then another voice from the rear of the auditorium shouted back, “Can a man carry fire in his bosom and his clothes not get burned? Wise men lay up knowledge, but the babbling fool brings ruin near.”
After the final speaker harangues the crowd, many faces among them are red with anger and frustration. Shaking fists are raised. The ring of shouts of “Blasphemy! Blasphemy!” rain about this final speaker, the insane one named Ezekiel, as he steps down from the stage towards his seat in the front row.
Now, as the crowd’s shouting diminishes suddenly a deafening sound from nowhere and everywhere as if it were a whirlwind proclaims, “I thought I would pour out my wrath upon you and spend my anger against you in the wilderness. But, I withheld my hand and acted for the sake of my name, that I would not be profaned in the sight of the nations in whose sight I brought you out. Moreover, I gave you statutes that were not good and ordinances by which you could not live; and I defiled you through your own gifts by demanding you offer to the fire all your first born so I might horrify you, so you will know I AM THE LORD.”
The organizers panic. They try to keep control of the proceedings by hurrying the announcer of the fight onto the stage with microphone in hand. He begins, "Ladies and Gentlemen, in one corner we will have The Innocent standing in for the goodness and kindness of God and human virtue. In the other corner we will have his Adversary standing in defense of the Psalms (especially the 44th), and wisdom of Proverbs. The noise of the crowd increases. Out in the seats a heckler with “King Lear” written across the front of his baseball hat sputters at this spectacle and shouts in a strong bass voice, “As flies to wanton boys, are we to the gods. They kill us for their sport."
In the wings off stage-right, The One called God smiles with a self-satisfied knowledge and casts his gamble with The Adversary who is standing on stage-left. The Innocent, who in actuality is a stranger from another land, has learned of this God and has come to love and honor Him more greatly than the people in this audience. The Innocent stands on the street at the entrance to the auditorium listening to the noise and hurrah within but is not quite able to make out what is said. He enters and stands at the top of the central aisle that leads down to the stage. One of the organizers recognizes the man and bids his fellows to drag him to the stage, now converted to a ring for the fight.
Satan considers his wager, ”Of what value is faith if practiced only for reward?” He leaves the building, smiling with a self-satisfied knowledge.
Thirty-seven (24) rounds later the Innocent is no more an innocent but a beaten, defeated man who still fights to deny his newly found knowledge that there can be no assurance of reward for the loyal servant; that this God can do ill to a good man. Yet he still clings to his faith in God, even with the knowledge that the crowd has splayed and killed his family and burnt his home and possessions at God’s instigation by a wager with…can it be Himself? Cowering and fearful, the Innocent clings to that Faith in Him even though his Adversary has broken his body.
Now carried by the organizers from the ring into the wings, he lies bloodied and diseased. He has only shouted to God that this cannot be without cause and demands of the Adversary to explain what ill the Innocent has done to merit this defeat.
Unaware a nearby microphone is still turned on, The Gambler still stands in the wings of stage-right, stunned that he has allowed this horribly cruel and capricious thing of his Own to unfold. A tear rolls down the cheek of The Gambler as the Innocent demands this explanation; but as fast as the tear forms, an impulse of unbounded fury rises in his chest. He shouts,” It is so because I wanted it so!”
This final fury cows the Innocent. He is too terrified and too devastated to speak boldly hearing that this ill-made reward for goodness only results from capriciousness. He is determined however to dare a very quietly and a very carefully crafted acknowledgement, “I now see You for who You are and can only fear for us all.”
The crowd staring at the empty stage is stunned and staggered by this argument coming from the PA system. People stand up uneasily. Finally those towards the rear begin to file out. As they leave, a woman turns to her husband and whispers, “This can’t be it. It can’t be all there is, can it? Is this it?” The husband struggles for words, finally muttering under his breath, “No, it can’t be. There must be hope for reward.” Another fellow in the departing crowd who hears the man’s reply to his wife says, “Hey, don’t be too zealous, or too rowdy, find the middle ground. Don’t rock the boat or you’ll get stepped on.”
There in the wings the Innocent struggles to his feet and the Gambler stands in silence. Both are too uncomfortable to look at each other, for their misery is great. Both are devastated by what has unfolded. They squirm in the pain of self-acknowledgement, the Gambler in recognition of who He is, the Innocent in submissive recognition of who God is. Finally The Gambler turns to leave. As He passes the Innocent Man, he speaks tenderly, “I stand by my Word. I will not restore your family but I remember Second Isaiah’s words, today you shall receive double compensation for My sin. Now, I must go away to think of what we have done here today.” He bows his head and his anger is kindled against the words of the crowd, but he repents.
He will be heard no more for 500 years, when at last he will decide finally enough is enough. He will come to say, “I do love these people as I love Myself. I do forgive and I do repent for you are a part of me.”
Amen
Henry Paris, copyright October 6, 2006
Thursday, October 9, 2008
Day 193 - Affliction and Atonement
I was standing by my truck fumbling for my keys when an unrecognized pickup came up from the rear of our village. The truck came to a halt beside me and an older fellow hopped out of the drivers’ side and walked over to me.
“I came by here yesterday looking for someone in charge, but couldn’t find anyone. Do you know who I might talk to?”
I said while leaning over across my drivers seat to reach in to put down my clipboard, “Well, I guess I’m as good a person as any to start with. What can I do for you?”
“I used to be a member of this church a few years ago, but something happened and I left. You don’t know Janie Upshaw do you? Boy! She was the reason I left, she's a hard woman to talk to.”
“Janie Upshaw?” I temporized. “Yes I know her, she is a member here.”
I didn’t continue that on occasion I sit next to her and her husband on Sunday, or that she has recently suffered a severe, life-threatening illness.
“Yes, I got along with Herb, her husband pretty well, but I could never seem to find peace with Janie. That’s why I left.”
He continued, “But I found a really good church now, it’s a Mennonite church.”
“You don’t say?”
“I heard they are going to close this church. When they started using the fellowship hall, I gave them a refrigerator. I don’t particularly want it back; I guess they can do what they want with it."
After a short pause he continued, ”But I sure want the bell back.”
“The bell? You mean the little one on the porch they ring Sunday morning, or the one in the steeple?”
“The one in the steeple. I gave them that bell with the understanding if the church closed I wanted it back. It belonged to my father-in-law. I can probably get one of previous members to support me on that.”
“I think the best place to start is with the pastor. His name is Scott Zachariah, do you know him?”
“No I don’t know the name.”
“If you give me your name and number I’ll give it to him, and I’m sure they will find a good resolution to the problem.”
I took his information and I’ll give it to Scott. But, what is it about churches? They are supposed to be the place where we ought to get along but we fight until we cut the baby into halves, as if we were Solomon.
* * *
We worked hard last July to get a funding proposal for Sally Pringel. Sally is about 75 and her husband just died. She lives in an old mobile home out on the northeast side of town. I went out to survey the storm damage.
I got out of my truck and walked to the front door. By the time I got to the steps already I was sweating profusely. The home sits on a nice piece of property, it looks like about 20 or so acres. There is nice house about a hundred yards from the mobile home. I learned her son lives in the other home; it is a converted barn, and a nice one at that.
I didn’t have to knock on the door; she was watching for me and came out onto the porch to invite me in as I neared it. When I entered I could see mold penetrating the ceiling around the front door. Touring the home, I found more growing out the ceiling in the bathroom. There was evidence of a leak in the roof over the dining room and the air conditioning unit was broken. A small window unit labored hard to keep the place below 80 degrees.
She lives a pretty destitute life, only having a widow’s social security to pay for everything. It looked like she would qualify for assistance but late in August just before Gustav hit us, I learned from the granting agency that she was turned down due to the age of the mobile home.
After we got back from Meridian where we evacuated during Gustav and before I could get back to her with the sad news, she began calling me.
“Mr. Paris, my home is even worse now. Have you heard anything?"
“Mrs. Pringel, I’d like to come out and talk about it all real soon.”
I didn’t want to give her the bad news over the phone because I thought if Christi, our new case manager liaison and I went out we might be able to figure out some alternative solution with her son.
A few days later she called back and Christi took the call and told her the bad news.
“Oh, no! What am I going to do? Can’t you help me, Gustav caved in my roof over the bathroom, and I can’t shower or go to the bathroom in it. I don’t know what I’m going to do.”
“Well, Mrs. Pringel what about maybe we could find a way to add a room onto your son’s home? “
Mrs. Pringel told Christi, “I don’t think so, and I don’t think he can afford it.”
“Mrs. Pringel, can you give us permission to talk to your son about your situation, and give us his phone number?”
“Yes, you can do that, and I’ll give you his number.”
“Christi called the son.
“Mr. Pringel, are you aware of your mother’s situation? She doesn’t even have a bathroom to use to clean up?”
“No, I didn’t know that.”
“Well yes, Mr. Pringel, she is in a pretty bad predicament. Can’t you help her?”
Well how would I do that?”
“I understand you have a house you made by converting your barn. Isn’t it possible we could add a small room onto it for your mother if we can find the resources?”
“I don’t think that would work, and I couldn’t afford to pay someone to build it.”
“Mr. Pringel, all you’d have to do is acquire the materials, we can provide the construction labor.”
“I could get the materials, I’m a contractor, but I don’t think it would work, it would be too hard to add a room to the house.”
“Well, you have a pretty big piece of property; could we maybe help you build a small 1 or 2 room house on it for your mother?
To tell you the truth, I’m trying to sell the property. I think putting a house on it there would hurt the sale.”
But Mr. Pringel she is your mother, don’t you think you should help her so?”
Grudgingly he replied, “I guess I could set aside an acre or so for her.”
“Can we come out and talk to you about it?”
“Sure thing. You know I am helping her. I’m letting her stay on the property and I’m not even charging her rent “
He continued, “Just call me the day before to remind me you are coming. Do you need directions? It might be kind of hard to find, I have three pieces of property there and the mailboxes all say “Pringel.”
Three pieces of property? A nicely converted barn? A contracting business? Her mother in a partially collapsed mobile home with no indoor plumbing or bathroom? Call to remind him we are coming to find a way to help?
Yom Kippur, the tenth and final day of the days atonement, was last weekend. There is much to learn from the reason for its existence as a Jewish ritual day. It arises from Moses’ presentation of The Law in Leviticus. God gives his people ten days to repent of the wrongs they have done to others and for to forgive others of their transgressions. Leviticus Lev. 23:23-29 states:
“…It shall be a time of holy convocation and you shall afflict yourselves and present an offering by fire…whoever I not afflicted on this same day shall be cut off from his people.”
Afflict ourselves. Afflict means to cause grievous physical or mental distress. So to afflict ourselves in this ordinnace means to cause ourself to suffer great emotional distress over our wrongs.
We learn much later in God’s story of the magnitude of this great conflict, even in God’s mind, this self- affliction over wrong, the internalized battle between vengeance and atonement.
In Jonah, God determined to exact vengeance on the people of Nineveh for their wickedness. Yet when Jonah made God’s proclamation of His intent, Nineveh’s people and king not only turned from their evil ways but also abased themselves in ashes and sackcloth, beseeching God’s repentance from his anger at their evil ways. And in the prophet’s words, “when God saw that they had turned from their evil ways, God repented of the evil which he had said he would do to them and he did not do it.”
And we have Job, not even a member of the chosen people but still a blameless, upright and God fearing man who turned away from all evil. In perhaps the climatic moment in God’s relationship with his creation, God in a seemingly churlish way, gambled with Satan over this goodly man Job, allowing terrible infliction of suffering on him for no apparent reason other than to argue with Satan.
At the end of Job’s story, we find both God and Job have suffered terrible emotional grief from these acts. Both have afflicted themselves, one over the inexplicable reason for his suffering, the other, perhaps, over the infliction of arbitrary suffering. Job, as some would translate the Hebrew, states “ I have seen You for what you are, and I fear for mortal clay.” (John Miles, A biography of God)
To Job’s “friends” who had counseled Job that surely he must have done something wrong or God would not have done this to him God, God says, “My wrath is kindled against you… for you have not spoken of me what is right, as my servant Job has.”
God then in the Jewish way of repentance described by Isaiah restores Job’s fortune twofold as his remaining family come to console him for all the evil God had brought on him.” (Job 42: 7-13)
And later, much later, finally God afflicts himself in the penultimate atonement for His whole people by coming to us as fully man that we were able to exact on him the evil of our own ways, to try to prove His mortality.
Can we more gravely afflict ourselves than by this act other than to find a bit of forgiveness for others? Can we find forgiveness in a church bell for a verbal dispute that split a church, or forgive an unrepentant son?
“I came by here yesterday looking for someone in charge, but couldn’t find anyone. Do you know who I might talk to?”
I said while leaning over across my drivers seat to reach in to put down my clipboard, “Well, I guess I’m as good a person as any to start with. What can I do for you?”
“I used to be a member of this church a few years ago, but something happened and I left. You don’t know Janie Upshaw do you? Boy! She was the reason I left, she's a hard woman to talk to.”
“Janie Upshaw?” I temporized. “Yes I know her, she is a member here.”
I didn’t continue that on occasion I sit next to her and her husband on Sunday, or that she has recently suffered a severe, life-threatening illness.
“Yes, I got along with Herb, her husband pretty well, but I could never seem to find peace with Janie. That’s why I left.”
He continued, “But I found a really good church now, it’s a Mennonite church.”
“You don’t say?”
“I heard they are going to close this church. When they started using the fellowship hall, I gave them a refrigerator. I don’t particularly want it back; I guess they can do what they want with it."
After a short pause he continued, ”But I sure want the bell back.”
“The bell? You mean the little one on the porch they ring Sunday morning, or the one in the steeple?”
“The one in the steeple. I gave them that bell with the understanding if the church closed I wanted it back. It belonged to my father-in-law. I can probably get one of previous members to support me on that.”
“I think the best place to start is with the pastor. His name is Scott Zachariah, do you know him?”
“No I don’t know the name.”
“If you give me your name and number I’ll give it to him, and I’m sure they will find a good resolution to the problem.”
I took his information and I’ll give it to Scott. But, what is it about churches? They are supposed to be the place where we ought to get along but we fight until we cut the baby into halves, as if we were Solomon.
* * *
We worked hard last July to get a funding proposal for Sally Pringel. Sally is about 75 and her husband just died. She lives in an old mobile home out on the northeast side of town. I went out to survey the storm damage.
I got out of my truck and walked to the front door. By the time I got to the steps already I was sweating profusely. The home sits on a nice piece of property, it looks like about 20 or so acres. There is nice house about a hundred yards from the mobile home. I learned her son lives in the other home; it is a converted barn, and a nice one at that.
I didn’t have to knock on the door; she was watching for me and came out onto the porch to invite me in as I neared it. When I entered I could see mold penetrating the ceiling around the front door. Touring the home, I found more growing out the ceiling in the bathroom. There was evidence of a leak in the roof over the dining room and the air conditioning unit was broken. A small window unit labored hard to keep the place below 80 degrees.
She lives a pretty destitute life, only having a widow’s social security to pay for everything. It looked like she would qualify for assistance but late in August just before Gustav hit us, I learned from the granting agency that she was turned down due to the age of the mobile home.
After we got back from Meridian where we evacuated during Gustav and before I could get back to her with the sad news, she began calling me.
“Mr. Paris, my home is even worse now. Have you heard anything?"
“Mrs. Pringel, I’d like to come out and talk about it all real soon.”
I didn’t want to give her the bad news over the phone because I thought if Christi, our new case manager liaison and I went out we might be able to figure out some alternative solution with her son.
A few days later she called back and Christi took the call and told her the bad news.
“Oh, no! What am I going to do? Can’t you help me, Gustav caved in my roof over the bathroom, and I can’t shower or go to the bathroom in it. I don’t know what I’m going to do.”
“Well, Mrs. Pringel what about maybe we could find a way to add a room onto your son’s home? “
Mrs. Pringel told Christi, “I don’t think so, and I don’t think he can afford it.”
“Mrs. Pringel, can you give us permission to talk to your son about your situation, and give us his phone number?”
“Yes, you can do that, and I’ll give you his number.”
“Christi called the son.
“Mr. Pringel, are you aware of your mother’s situation? She doesn’t even have a bathroom to use to clean up?”
“No, I didn’t know that.”
“Well yes, Mr. Pringel, she is in a pretty bad predicament. Can’t you help her?”
Well how would I do that?”
“I understand you have a house you made by converting your barn. Isn’t it possible we could add a small room onto it for your mother if we can find the resources?”
“I don’t think that would work, and I couldn’t afford to pay someone to build it.”
“Mr. Pringel, all you’d have to do is acquire the materials, we can provide the construction labor.”
“I could get the materials, I’m a contractor, but I don’t think it would work, it would be too hard to add a room to the house.”
“Well, you have a pretty big piece of property; could we maybe help you build a small 1 or 2 room house on it for your mother?
To tell you the truth, I’m trying to sell the property. I think putting a house on it there would hurt the sale.”
But Mr. Pringel she is your mother, don’t you think you should help her so?”
Grudgingly he replied, “I guess I could set aside an acre or so for her.”
“Can we come out and talk to you about it?”
“Sure thing. You know I am helping her. I’m letting her stay on the property and I’m not even charging her rent “
He continued, “Just call me the day before to remind me you are coming. Do you need directions? It might be kind of hard to find, I have three pieces of property there and the mailboxes all say “Pringel.”
Three pieces of property? A nicely converted barn? A contracting business? Her mother in a partially collapsed mobile home with no indoor plumbing or bathroom? Call to remind him we are coming to find a way to help?
Yom Kippur, the tenth and final day of the days atonement, was last weekend. There is much to learn from the reason for its existence as a Jewish ritual day. It arises from Moses’ presentation of The Law in Leviticus. God gives his people ten days to repent of the wrongs they have done to others and for to forgive others of their transgressions. Leviticus Lev. 23:23-29 states:
“…It shall be a time of holy convocation and you shall afflict yourselves and present an offering by fire…whoever I not afflicted on this same day shall be cut off from his people.”
Afflict ourselves. Afflict means to cause grievous physical or mental distress. So to afflict ourselves in this ordinnace means to cause ourself to suffer great emotional distress over our wrongs.
We learn much later in God’s story of the magnitude of this great conflict, even in God’s mind, this self- affliction over wrong, the internalized battle between vengeance and atonement.
In Jonah, God determined to exact vengeance on the people of Nineveh for their wickedness. Yet when Jonah made God’s proclamation of His intent, Nineveh’s people and king not only turned from their evil ways but also abased themselves in ashes and sackcloth, beseeching God’s repentance from his anger at their evil ways. And in the prophet’s words, “when God saw that they had turned from their evil ways, God repented of the evil which he had said he would do to them and he did not do it.”
And we have Job, not even a member of the chosen people but still a blameless, upright and God fearing man who turned away from all evil. In perhaps the climatic moment in God’s relationship with his creation, God in a seemingly churlish way, gambled with Satan over this goodly man Job, allowing terrible infliction of suffering on him for no apparent reason other than to argue with Satan.
At the end of Job’s story, we find both God and Job have suffered terrible emotional grief from these acts. Both have afflicted themselves, one over the inexplicable reason for his suffering, the other, perhaps, over the infliction of arbitrary suffering. Job, as some would translate the Hebrew, states “ I have seen You for what you are, and I fear for mortal clay.” (John Miles, A biography of God)
To Job’s “friends” who had counseled Job that surely he must have done something wrong or God would not have done this to him God, God says, “My wrath is kindled against you… for you have not spoken of me what is right, as my servant Job has.”
God then in the Jewish way of repentance described by Isaiah restores Job’s fortune twofold as his remaining family come to console him for all the evil God had brought on him.” (Job 42: 7-13)
And later, much later, finally God afflicts himself in the penultimate atonement for His whole people by coming to us as fully man that we were able to exact on him the evil of our own ways, to try to prove His mortality.
Can we more gravely afflict ourselves than by this act other than to find a bit of forgiveness for others? Can we find forgiveness in a church bell for a verbal dispute that split a church, or forgive an unrepentant son?
Wednesday, October 8, 2008
Day 192 – Still Dreaming
I've had a pretty hectic time since the last post. We are having bigger teams, the rebuilding of Pearlington is very (painfully) slow and so we are doubling up at Orange Grove. I also am working with a family in Gulfport to remove moldy interior wall finishing and re-wire so that after over three years, they can have a livable home. more on that later. I also missed posting a reflection on Yom Kippur last weekend, and I'll try to get that out.
But I leave you with Henry's lament:
Still Dreaming
The first time, I could only stop my walk, awestruck,
a safe distance from the edge of that grand canyon of canyons.
Unconsciously a quiet gasp slipped free
as I beheld the walls changing color,
pink and red and yellow-tinted fading into indistinct haze
as I gazed further and further into it.
The expansiveness. A canyon so magnificent, so large
that its far walls seemed so near,
as if a canvas of pastels that I could reach out and touch,
but I realized only God’s arms could span its breadth and paint its beauty.
The last time, far below
I saw the bright glint of some small stream.
The raging river,
the lifeblood of myriad acres and people
who drain it to a trickle at its end, not even to the sea.
Standing there overcome by the thought
of how time and water made such a wonder,
I left. Dreaming, even now,
of what construction the future works on me.
That moment conjoined the sting of regret and the kiss of hope.
I recalled the mirthful celebration of cap and gown long ago,
of the fecund promise of the future’s work,
Of time that trickles relentlessly towards its end,
Eroding memories but not the past; leaving only the rue
of things I’ve done and have yet to do
H. Paris, © 2008
But I leave you with Henry's lament:
Still Dreaming
The first time, I could only stop my walk, awestruck,
a safe distance from the edge of that grand canyon of canyons.
Unconsciously a quiet gasp slipped free
as I beheld the walls changing color,
pink and red and yellow-tinted fading into indistinct haze
as I gazed further and further into it.
The expansiveness. A canyon so magnificent, so large
that its far walls seemed so near,
as if a canvas of pastels that I could reach out and touch,
but I realized only God’s arms could span its breadth and paint its beauty.
The last time, far below
I saw the bright glint of some small stream.
The raging river,
the lifeblood of myriad acres and people
who drain it to a trickle at its end, not even to the sea.
Standing there overcome by the thought
of how time and water made such a wonder,
I left. Dreaming, even now,
of what construction the future works on me.
That moment conjoined the sting of regret and the kiss of hope.
I recalled the mirthful celebration of cap and gown long ago,
of the fecund promise of the future’s work,
Of time that trickles relentlessly towards its end,
Eroding memories but not the past; leaving only the rue
of things I’ve done and have yet to do
H. Paris, © 2008
Sunday, September 21, 2008
Day 169 – And The Second Is Like The First
Late last week in the late afternoon, I drove around one neighborhood of Pearlington over near the Pearl River to pick up one of our village staff. He was at the home we have built for one of our neighbors. This neighbor had loaned us his four wheeler to pull pods from the swamp and kept an eye on our Village while we were in evacuation from Gustav.
I parked along the side of the road by the house, trying to get as much truck out of the road as I could without driving into the ditch. I leaped over the ditch and walked up the steps to the rear of the house to see how the interior work is coming along. Thankfully, Eddie had built the new house with enough elevation to stay high of the water this time.
While I stood there looking in, an older man slowly ambled over to talk to me from the house next door.
"Hello, how are you doing? My name is Henry.”
He took my hand and said, “I’m doing as well as I can, my name’s Ab, Eddie’s Dad.”
“Eddie is a fine guy.”
I swatted at a stinging on the back of my neck, smashing a large mosquito with my hand. As I looked at the large bloody spot on my open palm Ab laughed and asked, “Do you know you just killed one of Mississippi’s State birds?”
I imagine because of my drawl he then asked, “Where are you from?”
“I came down from Chattanooga last spring. I’m a Georgia boy though, from Rome.”
“Rome. I know that town for some reason. But, Chattanooga, that’s a nice town too. I used to push barges up the Mississippi. Sometimes we would push them up the Tennessee River. Always though it was odd how that river ran back down into Mississippi and up to Chattanooga. “
“Yes, Ab, I remember reading how after winning the battle of Nashville, the Union Army chased General Forrest down the river to Mississippi and across Alabama to Guntersville. I think that is where Forrest headed south to the Alabama River and up towards Rome.”
"I really hated those trips. There are so many recreational boating lanes and those small boats out on the water. They just ignore those heavy barges. I always feared I’d hit some knucklehead who was not paying attention. Those barges don’t even feel a boat like those when they hit it. You hit one of them with a barge and its kind of like that bug you swatted. Boy I'd hate to hit one of those boaters.”
“I pushed them on the Cumberland, too – up though Paducah, Kentucky. That was worse than the Tennessee River, the channel is so narrow. I never liked those trips.”
“We all really appreciate what you all from the Presbyterian Church are doing for us in Pearlington. That Jeremy, your work site manager is a fine young man. Chris is too. They are both good boys. A lot of us just wouldn’t have made it if you hadn’t come. I lost everything and just about all my hope. In fact, this is the second time my wife and I lost everything. But you know, I’ve come to realize it doesn’t matter. I don't have much left anyway, my health is gone. I have really bad lungs and heart. These cigarettes have done me in. I’ve tried to stop but I just can’t. I wonder what they put in them? I’ll tell you, as far as I am concerned as long as my wife and I have each other we will be OK. The house and furniture just don’t matter.”
“Ab, I think I understand what you mean about that.”
"I’ll tell you though, some of the folks you helped didn’t need it. You know there is a really bad drug problem in Pearlington. There always has been. It goes back a long way, before Katrina. Some of those folks whose houses you rebuilt houses have enough money from the drugs to build everybody in Pearlington a house.”
“You know Ab, I read in the paper about that cocaine bust over on 604. One of my friends lives over on 5th street, I think it is, off 7th Avenue where they hang out selling drugs on the corner at Whites Road. Sometimes they actually almost block the road to traffic. One day my friend’s wife was coming back from work and those guys gave her a hard time. She said she just drove on through. One of them waved a gun at her and she just picked up the one she had on the seat just in case, and waved it in the rear view mirror, almost daring them to try something. She has a lot of sass in her.“
“I can imagine it Mr. Henry. You know though, it is a bad feeling to be in a situation where you realize in the next moment you may have to shoot someone. It happened to me once a few years ago and I still get a bad feeling about it. I got into a fix so deep that I had already pulled the slack out of the trigger and I knew the next thing was going to be somebody getting killed. It made a terrible feeling in my stomach that I can’t forget.”
“Really? What happened?”
“I was driving over to New Orleans on US 90. I drove by my wife’s brother-in-law’s house that sits on the highway just past Slidell. As I drove by I saw a guy with a can and hose at the back of the brother-in-law’s car. Another man was standing by the driver’s door fiddling with the window. An old Econoline Ford panel truck sat across the road and I figured it was theirs.”
“I wasn’t about to let them mess up his car, so I drove past them a little bit and pulled over onto the side of the road. I had my old shotgun with me, a Winchester my Dad gave me. It wasn't a great gun but it worked really fine then. I still have it but Katrina ruined it, the action doesn’t work now. I put a couple of double ought buckshot shells in the gun. Then I got out of the car and started walking towards them.”
“Hey! You boys had best just leave that car alone now. I want you to get back in that van and get out of here.”
"They took a look at me and started walking towards me. That’s when I started getting nervous.”
"You boys hear me, this gun is loaded. You just keep on coming toward me and I’ll have to use it."
"They kept coming and got up within maybe twenty feet. I said, 'I’m warning you if you take another step towards me I’m shooting.'"
“It was a terrible thing, I knew right there that this situation had only two ways to end. We were hanging on the moment of decision. If they made another move I was going to have to let loose with my shotgun.”
“Aw mister, what’s the problem? We ran out of gas and just need a gallon or two to get on down the road to a service station.”
“They just stood there a while lookin' down the barrel of my shotgun, thinking of what to do next.”
“You boys don’t fool me with that line. You passed three stations back in Slidell. I’m telling you that you’d better get back in that van and go back to Slidell and get some gas there, or move on towards New Orleans. In fact, I’m telling you to get in the van and get out of here now because as soon as you get in, I’m going back to Slidell and calling the police. So you’d best put some distance between me and you.”
“I was sweating up a storm with dread of what was going to happen next. It was a bad, cold feeling, I’ll tell you the acid in my stomach was churning. I knew what that buckshot would do if I pulled the trigger.”
“Thank the Lord, they decided I meant business, moved backwards to their van, got in and took off. I don’t know how I’d have been able to stand it if I’d had to shoot. I would have because it was surely me or them. I feel the dread now just as I did then.”
* * *
As with so many encounters down here, the one with Ab left me unsettled on my drive back to Gulfport. It brought back to me some words that I’d written several years earlier, and dread I'd felt because of it.
“Let us make man in our own image.…So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created them, and blessed them and (gave them) dominion over…every living thing upon the earth, and saw that it was very good.
“I tell you my friends, do not fear those who kill the body, and after that have no more that they can do. But I will warn you whom to fear, fear him who, after he has killed, has the power to cast into hell, yes I tell you, fear him!
“Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the law?” And he said to him, 'You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul and with your mind. And the second is like it. You shall love your neighbor as yourself. On these two commandments depend all the laws and the prophets.' ”
These words persuade me strongly that a piece of God is in every person. No, I would say God as a whole is in every person, as far-fetched as that sounds. This creates a difficult problem for us. It means to kill a person is to kill God, or to strike against God, or at least against a part of God. From Adam until now, constantly and impudently we have vied with God for dominion over the one thing He holds dear to Himself alone, the power to give creativity (life) and death.
We justify struggling with Him for this power, proclaiming it His way. We justify killing by stating it is “in defense of God and Faith.” In defense of God? In defense of Faith?” How does one defend a Faith that rests not on the influence or power of another person or country or on freedom itself, but only upon what is in one’s heart? What is Faith but internally held conviction unfettered by worldly power? It is based not on fact or reason, but on belief in forgiveness and salvation. Faith stands in conflict with fact and reason. Faith cannot be subjugated except by oneself. And so, does God really need a defense by us? Or, do we just treasure life over Faith?
In a fit of selfish pretension we often justify killing by joining to our statement the words “in defense of liberty and country.” We send our sons to kill or be killed in defense of liberty and country. Or we say, this man killed my wife, or this man raped my daughter, or this man betrayed my country, I want his blood, execute him. We do this in spite of the greater two commandments Jesus spoke, and in spite of God’s reservation of vengeance to Himself.
In my opinion, Jesus in that quote above emphasized and extended the interpretation of the Law. Jesus proscribes killing, how can you love and honor God, or your neighbor, and kill him?
Let’s ask the question, “who has demanded the death of sons that has the authority to demand such a thing?” I recall two sons, Isaac and Jesus. I believe that every time we kill, by our own hands or by proxy, we strike against God. We can’t kill God, but perhaps we dare to bruise His compassion.
If you have children that you love, especially teenagers, you know how it feels when one of them does or says something especially cruel that hurts you. Must God feel that way when we kill His creation? How many times have we bruised God’s compassion in this way? 100-fold times, a million-fold times, a billion-fold times, perhaps more? Yet God persists in one endeavor, to hold open arms and say to us “I have allowed you to exact your killing on Me as Man to show you that I alone have dominion over life and death. I have forgiven you of this wrong before you were born.”
No sin is beyond absolution except denial of Faith. This is where my Faith lies; in the persistent enigma of unjustified forgiveness of reprehensible, evil acts.
I just pray I never face the test that Ab found for himself that night on the road to New Orleans.
I parked along the side of the road by the house, trying to get as much truck out of the road as I could without driving into the ditch. I leaped over the ditch and walked up the steps to the rear of the house to see how the interior work is coming along. Thankfully, Eddie had built the new house with enough elevation to stay high of the water this time.
While I stood there looking in, an older man slowly ambled over to talk to me from the house next door.
"Hello, how are you doing? My name is Henry.”
He took my hand and said, “I’m doing as well as I can, my name’s Ab, Eddie’s Dad.”
“Eddie is a fine guy.”
I swatted at a stinging on the back of my neck, smashing a large mosquito with my hand. As I looked at the large bloody spot on my open palm Ab laughed and asked, “Do you know you just killed one of Mississippi’s State birds?”
I imagine because of my drawl he then asked, “Where are you from?”
“I came down from Chattanooga last spring. I’m a Georgia boy though, from Rome.”
“Rome. I know that town for some reason. But, Chattanooga, that’s a nice town too. I used to push barges up the Mississippi. Sometimes we would push them up the Tennessee River. Always though it was odd how that river ran back down into Mississippi and up to Chattanooga. “
“Yes, Ab, I remember reading how after winning the battle of Nashville, the Union Army chased General Forrest down the river to Mississippi and across Alabama to Guntersville. I think that is where Forrest headed south to the Alabama River and up towards Rome.”
"I really hated those trips. There are so many recreational boating lanes and those small boats out on the water. They just ignore those heavy barges. I always feared I’d hit some knucklehead who was not paying attention. Those barges don’t even feel a boat like those when they hit it. You hit one of them with a barge and its kind of like that bug you swatted. Boy I'd hate to hit one of those boaters.”
“I pushed them on the Cumberland, too – up though Paducah, Kentucky. That was worse than the Tennessee River, the channel is so narrow. I never liked those trips.”
“We all really appreciate what you all from the Presbyterian Church are doing for us in Pearlington. That Jeremy, your work site manager is a fine young man. Chris is too. They are both good boys. A lot of us just wouldn’t have made it if you hadn’t come. I lost everything and just about all my hope. In fact, this is the second time my wife and I lost everything. But you know, I’ve come to realize it doesn’t matter. I don't have much left anyway, my health is gone. I have really bad lungs and heart. These cigarettes have done me in. I’ve tried to stop but I just can’t. I wonder what they put in them? I’ll tell you, as far as I am concerned as long as my wife and I have each other we will be OK. The house and furniture just don’t matter.”
“Ab, I think I understand what you mean about that.”
"I’ll tell you though, some of the folks you helped didn’t need it. You know there is a really bad drug problem in Pearlington. There always has been. It goes back a long way, before Katrina. Some of those folks whose houses you rebuilt houses have enough money from the drugs to build everybody in Pearlington a house.”
“You know Ab, I read in the paper about that cocaine bust over on 604. One of my friends lives over on 5th street, I think it is, off 7th Avenue where they hang out selling drugs on the corner at Whites Road. Sometimes they actually almost block the road to traffic. One day my friend’s wife was coming back from work and those guys gave her a hard time. She said she just drove on through. One of them waved a gun at her and she just picked up the one she had on the seat just in case, and waved it in the rear view mirror, almost daring them to try something. She has a lot of sass in her.“
“I can imagine it Mr. Henry. You know though, it is a bad feeling to be in a situation where you realize in the next moment you may have to shoot someone. It happened to me once a few years ago and I still get a bad feeling about it. I got into a fix so deep that I had already pulled the slack out of the trigger and I knew the next thing was going to be somebody getting killed. It made a terrible feeling in my stomach that I can’t forget.”
“Really? What happened?”
“I was driving over to New Orleans on US 90. I drove by my wife’s brother-in-law’s house that sits on the highway just past Slidell. As I drove by I saw a guy with a can and hose at the back of the brother-in-law’s car. Another man was standing by the driver’s door fiddling with the window. An old Econoline Ford panel truck sat across the road and I figured it was theirs.”
“I wasn’t about to let them mess up his car, so I drove past them a little bit and pulled over onto the side of the road. I had my old shotgun with me, a Winchester my Dad gave me. It wasn't a great gun but it worked really fine then. I still have it but Katrina ruined it, the action doesn’t work now. I put a couple of double ought buckshot shells in the gun. Then I got out of the car and started walking towards them.”
“Hey! You boys had best just leave that car alone now. I want you to get back in that van and get out of here.”
"They took a look at me and started walking towards me. That’s when I started getting nervous.”
"You boys hear me, this gun is loaded. You just keep on coming toward me and I’ll have to use it."
"They kept coming and got up within maybe twenty feet. I said, 'I’m warning you if you take another step towards me I’m shooting.'"
“It was a terrible thing, I knew right there that this situation had only two ways to end. We were hanging on the moment of decision. If they made another move I was going to have to let loose with my shotgun.”
“Aw mister, what’s the problem? We ran out of gas and just need a gallon or two to get on down the road to a service station.”
“They just stood there a while lookin' down the barrel of my shotgun, thinking of what to do next.”
“You boys don’t fool me with that line. You passed three stations back in Slidell. I’m telling you that you’d better get back in that van and go back to Slidell and get some gas there, or move on towards New Orleans. In fact, I’m telling you to get in the van and get out of here now because as soon as you get in, I’m going back to Slidell and calling the police. So you’d best put some distance between me and you.”
“I was sweating up a storm with dread of what was going to happen next. It was a bad, cold feeling, I’ll tell you the acid in my stomach was churning. I knew what that buckshot would do if I pulled the trigger.”
“Thank the Lord, they decided I meant business, moved backwards to their van, got in and took off. I don’t know how I’d have been able to stand it if I’d had to shoot. I would have because it was surely me or them. I feel the dread now just as I did then.”
* * *
As with so many encounters down here, the one with Ab left me unsettled on my drive back to Gulfport. It brought back to me some words that I’d written several years earlier, and dread I'd felt because of it.
“Let us make man in our own image.…So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created them, and blessed them and (gave them) dominion over…every living thing upon the earth, and saw that it was very good.
“I tell you my friends, do not fear those who kill the body, and after that have no more that they can do. But I will warn you whom to fear, fear him who, after he has killed, has the power to cast into hell, yes I tell you, fear him!
“Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the law?” And he said to him, 'You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul and with your mind. And the second is like it. You shall love your neighbor as yourself. On these two commandments depend all the laws and the prophets.' ”
These words persuade me strongly that a piece of God is in every person. No, I would say God as a whole is in every person, as far-fetched as that sounds. This creates a difficult problem for us. It means to kill a person is to kill God, or to strike against God, or at least against a part of God. From Adam until now, constantly and impudently we have vied with God for dominion over the one thing He holds dear to Himself alone, the power to give creativity (life) and death.
We justify struggling with Him for this power, proclaiming it His way. We justify killing by stating it is “in defense of God and Faith.” In defense of God? In defense of Faith?” How does one defend a Faith that rests not on the influence or power of another person or country or on freedom itself, but only upon what is in one’s heart? What is Faith but internally held conviction unfettered by worldly power? It is based not on fact or reason, but on belief in forgiveness and salvation. Faith stands in conflict with fact and reason. Faith cannot be subjugated except by oneself. And so, does God really need a defense by us? Or, do we just treasure life over Faith?
In a fit of selfish pretension we often justify killing by joining to our statement the words “in defense of liberty and country.” We send our sons to kill or be killed in defense of liberty and country. Or we say, this man killed my wife, or this man raped my daughter, or this man betrayed my country, I want his blood, execute him. We do this in spite of the greater two commandments Jesus spoke, and in spite of God’s reservation of vengeance to Himself.
In my opinion, Jesus in that quote above emphasized and extended the interpretation of the Law. Jesus proscribes killing, how can you love and honor God, or your neighbor, and kill him?
Let’s ask the question, “who has demanded the death of sons that has the authority to demand such a thing?” I recall two sons, Isaac and Jesus. I believe that every time we kill, by our own hands or by proxy, we strike against God. We can’t kill God, but perhaps we dare to bruise His compassion.
If you have children that you love, especially teenagers, you know how it feels when one of them does or says something especially cruel that hurts you. Must God feel that way when we kill His creation? How many times have we bruised God’s compassion in this way? 100-fold times, a million-fold times, a billion-fold times, perhaps more? Yet God persists in one endeavor, to hold open arms and say to us “I have allowed you to exact your killing on Me as Man to show you that I alone have dominion over life and death. I have forgiven you of this wrong before you were born.”
No sin is beyond absolution except denial of Faith. This is where my Faith lies; in the persistent enigma of unjustified forgiveness of reprehensible, evil acts.
I just pray I never face the test that Ab found for himself that night on the road to New Orleans.
Saturday, September 20, 2008
Day 174 – Circumcise our Hearts to The Lord
It has been almost three weeks since we began preparing for Gustav. We evacuated to Meridian, MS. Gustav has come and gone and Ike came as close to us as I really want to be to a really bad storm.
Recovering from the damage of those storms has been time-consuming, emotionally draining and physically exhausting. Most of our staff has worked 6-7 days a week, many of them 9 or 10 hour days for the majority of those three weeks.
We have volunteers coming into Orange Grove (Gulfport) and Olive Tree (New Orleans) Sunday. The next weekend we have volunteers coming into Pearlington and Luling. We have little time to rest to get ready for them.
Late last week I was in Pearlington. Pearlington has our attention because that Village sustained so much damage and volunteers are coming in another week. Although we packed out almost all our high-value tools from our two sea containers and filled them with our cots, mattresses, heaters and air conditioners and large dining tent; Gustav flooded the containers with about two feet of water, leaving behind a nice present of mold.
Gustav floated away our pods (“tents”) and damaged several beyond repair. We pressure washed the stinking mud and detritus from the concrete and then fished most of the pods out of the swamp onto the concrete using chains, ropes and straps with a back hoe, a pickup truck, a four-wheeler recreational cart and brute force.
Then after all that, Ike came along. Although it never approached closer than about 200 miles, the surge from it undid everything we had done to recover from Gustav. All the pods were back into the swamp. We have had to recover those in the same way.
Yesterday we managed to get all our surviving pods back into the rough formation we want thanks to the fork lift provided by the graciousness of the Laignappe Church in Bay Saint Louis. We’ve had to cut trenches in our concrete pad for new wiring. (That concrete pad is the parking lot of the former post office.) The water damaged much of our ground-level electrical wiring at Pearlington. We have dug trenches for electric line and new propane lines. Now we wait on the electricians and the propane company.
Our pods and main tent at Houma Village were completely destroyed by Gustav and Ike. Because we were not able to pack out the cots and mattresses, or get them into the sea container on site a large proportion of them were destroyed, as was the big tent. I am not sure when we will be able to bring in volunteers to Houma.
Our Luling Village on the north side of New Orleans out near Lafourche Parish was spared a lot of damage. We lost a couple of pods. This was miraculous since near by parishes of Lafourche and Terrebonne were severely damaged. The last I heard, Terrebonne is still without power and has a serious problem with the water supply.
Several of us spent a very hard full day last weekend at Luling cutting up all the broken trees and limbs with chain saws and dragging the result to the curb. This weekend Leslie, our Volunteer Village Coordinator and son and friends went back to finish cleanup and painting.
We are exhausted and everyone is on edge. This is unbelievably hard work. Some of our staff are not prepared for this sacrifice. They cannot deal with the long-term stress and physical demands. I can’t criticize them for it as I am stressed myself and more than a little tired.
A lot of folks come down with full intention to help but expect a more laid-back situation within which that big hurricane (Katrina) is a past meteorological anomaly. If one has not had the experience of dealing with long periods of sustain high stress, physical labor, and inherently dangerous weather; burnout is a common consequence.
We forget that we work in a geography where hurricanes are part of the historical record. On top of our recent struggles another tropic disturbance lurking in the Hispaniola area shows signs of intensifying. I fear that if this storm grows and threatens us; a few of our staff may not have the strength to sustain the effort to remain to help.
Nevertheless these challenges will pass and even be replaced by others. We must always be mindful that we are charged with the mission of our church, a charge that lies at the hearth of Christianity to give the gifts of our own blessings to help the homeless, the poor, the widow, the downtrodden people who survived Katrina, Gustav and Ike.
We will do our best to prevail with that charge with an humble and broken spirit.
Recovering from the damage of those storms has been time-consuming, emotionally draining and physically exhausting. Most of our staff has worked 6-7 days a week, many of them 9 or 10 hour days for the majority of those three weeks.
We have volunteers coming into Orange Grove (Gulfport) and Olive Tree (New Orleans) Sunday. The next weekend we have volunteers coming into Pearlington and Luling. We have little time to rest to get ready for them.
Late last week I was in Pearlington. Pearlington has our attention because that Village sustained so much damage and volunteers are coming in another week. Although we packed out almost all our high-value tools from our two sea containers and filled them with our cots, mattresses, heaters and air conditioners and large dining tent; Gustav flooded the containers with about two feet of water, leaving behind a nice present of mold.
Gustav floated away our pods (“tents”) and damaged several beyond repair. We pressure washed the stinking mud and detritus from the concrete and then fished most of the pods out of the swamp onto the concrete using chains, ropes and straps with a back hoe, a pickup truck, a four-wheeler recreational cart and brute force.
Then after all that, Ike came along. Although it never approached closer than about 200 miles, the surge from it undid everything we had done to recover from Gustav. All the pods were back into the swamp. We have had to recover those in the same way.
Yesterday we managed to get all our surviving pods back into the rough formation we want thanks to the fork lift provided by the graciousness of the Laignappe Church in Bay Saint Louis. We’ve had to cut trenches in our concrete pad for new wiring. (That concrete pad is the parking lot of the former post office.) The water damaged much of our ground-level electrical wiring at Pearlington. We have dug trenches for electric line and new propane lines. Now we wait on the electricians and the propane company.
Our pods and main tent at Houma Village were completely destroyed by Gustav and Ike. Because we were not able to pack out the cots and mattresses, or get them into the sea container on site a large proportion of them were destroyed, as was the big tent. I am not sure when we will be able to bring in volunteers to Houma.
Our Luling Village on the north side of New Orleans out near Lafourche Parish was spared a lot of damage. We lost a couple of pods. This was miraculous since near by parishes of Lafourche and Terrebonne were severely damaged. The last I heard, Terrebonne is still without power and has a serious problem with the water supply.
Several of us spent a very hard full day last weekend at Luling cutting up all the broken trees and limbs with chain saws and dragging the result to the curb. This weekend Leslie, our Volunteer Village Coordinator and son and friends went back to finish cleanup and painting.
We are exhausted and everyone is on edge. This is unbelievably hard work. Some of our staff are not prepared for this sacrifice. They cannot deal with the long-term stress and physical demands. I can’t criticize them for it as I am stressed myself and more than a little tired.
A lot of folks come down with full intention to help but expect a more laid-back situation within which that big hurricane (Katrina) is a past meteorological anomaly. If one has not had the experience of dealing with long periods of sustain high stress, physical labor, and inherently dangerous weather; burnout is a common consequence.
We forget that we work in a geography where hurricanes are part of the historical record. On top of our recent struggles another tropic disturbance lurking in the Hispaniola area shows signs of intensifying. I fear that if this storm grows and threatens us; a few of our staff may not have the strength to sustain the effort to remain to help.
Nevertheless these challenges will pass and even be replaced by others. We must always be mindful that we are charged with the mission of our church, a charge that lies at the hearth of Christianity to give the gifts of our own blessings to help the homeless, the poor, the widow, the downtrodden people who survived Katrina, Gustav and Ike.
We will do our best to prevail with that charge with an humble and broken spirit.
Friday, September 12, 2008
Day 166 - Ike comes to us
The high water along our Mississippi coast described in my last post dropped with the ebbing tide last night. I am awaiting what comes today with the next high tide.
Last night about 5:00PM after I left a client's home over in Long Beach, I was waiting to turn onto US90. Looking out over the Gulf as far as I could see wave after wave marched westward almost parallel to the beach. The ocean level a mile or so out looked decidedly higher than the shoreline. We are on the eastern fringe of the wind field and it is still quite strong enough to bow and bend the trees and limbs.
Sitting in the dining tent earlier at 6:00AM drinking my tea, the rattling tent walls were quite the distraction but not a real threat. However, the gusts that rock of my RV as I write this are more disconcerting.
As a scienist/engineer, I am completely fascinated with the massive size and behavior of this hurricane. At 5:00AM Ike had strengthened from 100 mph to 105 mph. Where the wind speed will stop increasing, no one knows with certainty.
Almost forgotten in my attention to Ike, the remnant of Jospehine is lurking in the Atlantic near Haiti and the Dominican Republic. What is that one going to do?
In an earlier e-mail to a colleague I had expressed relief that his meteorologist friend had quite accurately hypothesized that most of this season's storms would take a southerly route.
It doesn't take much to turn scientific curiosity and relief into grief. That wind against my RV is foreboding the disaster that lies ahead about 1:00AM tonight in the Galveston area and eastward. I heard on the radio that the NHC or NWS released a statement that anyone in Galveston who lives in one or two story residence faces certain death if they stay behind today.
God help them all.
Last night about 5:00PM after I left a client's home over in Long Beach, I was waiting to turn onto US90. Looking out over the Gulf as far as I could see wave after wave marched westward almost parallel to the beach. The ocean level a mile or so out looked decidedly higher than the shoreline. We are on the eastern fringe of the wind field and it is still quite strong enough to bow and bend the trees and limbs.
Sitting in the dining tent earlier at 6:00AM drinking my tea, the rattling tent walls were quite the distraction but not a real threat. However, the gusts that rock of my RV as I write this are more disconcerting.
As a scienist/engineer, I am completely fascinated with the massive size and behavior of this hurricane. At 5:00AM Ike had strengthened from 100 mph to 105 mph. Where the wind speed will stop increasing, no one knows with certainty.
Almost forgotten in my attention to Ike, the remnant of Jospehine is lurking in the Atlantic near Haiti and the Dominican Republic. What is that one going to do?
In an earlier e-mail to a colleague I had expressed relief that his meteorologist friend had quite accurately hypothesized that most of this season's storms would take a southerly route.
It doesn't take much to turn scientific curiosity and relief into grief. That wind against my RV is foreboding the disaster that lies ahead about 1:00AM tonight in the Galveston area and eastward. I heard on the radio that the NHC or NWS released a statement that anyone in Galveston who lives in one or two story residence faces certain death if they stay behind today.
God help them all.
Thursday, September 11, 2008
Day 165 - Relying In Our Own Strength
Well, Ike is a category 2 hurricane about 200 or so nautical miles south of the mouth of the Mississippi river, moving west towards Corpus Christi or Galveston, TX. It is a massive category 1 storm with a low pressure at its center that says it should be a transitioning from category 3 to category 4. A very unusual and likely dangerous storm.
Ike's wind field is massive, especially on its northern arc, and that means us. We have tropical storm warnings all the way to the Alabama coast.
I was on the telephone at 10AM looking for a fork lift, concrete saw and trenching tool to start trenching for electrical work and reassembling the pods in our Pearlington Village with Jeremy and an electrician. The fellow at the rental store asked me what the water was like in Pearlington. Thinking of Gustav's water, I said we were ok and were just trying to move our pods back into position.
"Well, you ought to check, I don't want to deliver a fork lift into a parking lot full of water."
"Really, what do you mean?"
"Well here in Waveland, MS603 is already underwater, the police have it closed."
Now readers, MS603 is the road that runs from I-10 south to Waveland. It is la little low and Gustav covered it with maybe several inches of water. But, Ike is well south of us, I mean 200 nautical miles south. I expected being on the eastern side of Ike might give us some water, but not two days before landfall in Texas.
Then the weather radio reports that there are 20-25 foot seas in the gulf off the Mississippi coast. That's significant.
I decided I had better call my friend Larry in Pearlington for the situation because he is a long time resident and knows the streets. Gustav flooded him about eight inches.
"Hey, Mr. Henry, how's it going?"
"Larry, I heard 603 is underwater, what is it like over on the Pearl River side of 604 at our village?"
"I don't think you have water over there, yet... Water is over a lot of the small streets and my wife and I are working hard to get all our stuff put up high because it looks like we are going to take some water."
"Well, Larry I better let you go I don't want to slow you down."
***
You may have read about Larry in my first seven pieces. Katrina washed away Larry's place. Before that he had never seen water that high in Pearlington. Gustav did not wash his home away but it soaked everything.
A couple days after Gustav came through and we got back to Pearlington, I stopped over at the Pearlington Recovery Center with an American Red Cross volunteer from Ohio to talk to him. Larry said he and his wife were talking seriously about fixing up the place and selling it.
They have had enough. I'm sure he'll say that again for the last time if Ike floods him.
Significantly, Ike is to take a hard right turn north about the time it encounters Texas.
I will not rest easy until that happens because a little change in the weather in the mid-west could make Ike turn a lot sooner than we think. I would fear for New Orleans.
Even so, I worry for the folks in Texas. I remember what that poor woman in Pearlington said about hoping it hit there instead of somewhere else (see Day 151).
I guess you can only fight with Nature for just so long before you realize you can't win.
Somewhere in Psalms the writer says, "If we rely in our own strength, we are lost."
Ike's wind field is massive, especially on its northern arc, and that means us. We have tropical storm warnings all the way to the Alabama coast.
I was on the telephone at 10AM looking for a fork lift, concrete saw and trenching tool to start trenching for electrical work and reassembling the pods in our Pearlington Village with Jeremy and an electrician. The fellow at the rental store asked me what the water was like in Pearlington. Thinking of Gustav's water, I said we were ok and were just trying to move our pods back into position.
"Well, you ought to check, I don't want to deliver a fork lift into a parking lot full of water."
"Really, what do you mean?"
"Well here in Waveland, MS603 is already underwater, the police have it closed."
Now readers, MS603 is the road that runs from I-10 south to Waveland. It is la little low and Gustav covered it with maybe several inches of water. But, Ike is well south of us, I mean 200 nautical miles south. I expected being on the eastern side of Ike might give us some water, but not two days before landfall in Texas.
Then the weather radio reports that there are 20-25 foot seas in the gulf off the Mississippi coast. That's significant.
I decided I had better call my friend Larry in Pearlington for the situation because he is a long time resident and knows the streets. Gustav flooded him about eight inches.
"Hey, Mr. Henry, how's it going?"
"Larry, I heard 603 is underwater, what is it like over on the Pearl River side of 604 at our village?"
"I don't think you have water over there, yet... Water is over a lot of the small streets and my wife and I are working hard to get all our stuff put up high because it looks like we are going to take some water."
"Well, Larry I better let you go I don't want to slow you down."
***
You may have read about Larry in my first seven pieces. Katrina washed away Larry's place. Before that he had never seen water that high in Pearlington. Gustav did not wash his home away but it soaked everything.
A couple days after Gustav came through and we got back to Pearlington, I stopped over at the Pearlington Recovery Center with an American Red Cross volunteer from Ohio to talk to him. Larry said he and his wife were talking seriously about fixing up the place and selling it.
They have had enough. I'm sure he'll say that again for the last time if Ike floods him.
Significantly, Ike is to take a hard right turn north about the time it encounters Texas.
I will not rest easy until that happens because a little change in the weather in the mid-west could make Ike turn a lot sooner than we think. I would fear for New Orleans.
Even so, I worry for the folks in Texas. I remember what that poor woman in Pearlington said about hoping it hit there instead of somewhere else (see Day 151).
I guess you can only fight with Nature for just so long before you realize you can't win.
Somewhere in Psalms the writer says, "If we rely in our own strength, we are lost."
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