| Sunny Side Up Sept.7, 2005 �Kathleen Gibson 2005 Jesus is never left untouched God generally allows nature to run its own course. Sometimes, as with Hurricane Katrina, that course is tragic. As I read and listened to reports from the area, the stories and comments of individuals affected bent my heart - and my prayers - toward the deep South. Imagine it: One day your world is bright, your home secure, and the next it's turned bottom up. I hope you've been praying for those people - they're just like us. They lost loved ones, home and community. Some, like Bill Higginbotham lost hope. A 91 year old retired carpenter, Bill waited to discover whether his home, the one he built in 1940 on the Back Bay of Biloxi, had endured the storm. He said, "Most probably I don't have a home anymore. I wanted to live, but after this I don't want to live no more.'' Ida Punzo is one of the luckier ones. The bottom two floors in her 130-year-old home in Biloxi were destroyed, but the upstairs remained a refuge for her, a friend, and two neighbours. "It was a miracle," she said. "This place is held together with God's spit. We're not supposed to be alive.'' Then there's Dr. Bob. He's a New Orleans artist, famous for his classic "Be Nice or Leave" signs, painted in bright childlike letters on wood and framed with bottle caps. (Too bad Katrina couldn't read.) When opportunists - and desperate people - began looting, Dr. Bob reportedly painted this vastly different message on his wall: "Looters Will Be Shot. Dr. Bob." Others made good on that sentiment by sitting beside their debris with loaded shotguns on their laps, and news reports indicate they've used them. Dorothy Loy of Pascagoula has nothing left to guard. "Now we're trying to salvage just a few memories. It's so depressing, really, because you have no address.'' In Baton Rouge, nine year old Calli Dennis, battling tears, said, "I lost everything." Nevertheless, she showed up to volunteer at a triage center. In the midst of all that brokenness, imagine the surprise when survivors in the French Quarter discovered this: at the St. Louis Cathedral, near two large uprooted oaks, a statue of Christ stood tall, relatively unscathed. "There are branches all around Jesus and he's left untouched," said Lani Ramos, who lives nearby. "It's just amazing." What a vivid reminder of the only thing life's storms, no matter how devastating can't strip away - one's faith. However, the living Jesus, unlike that statue, is never left untouched by human tragedy. In the midst of devastation he is present, powerful, and active. His hands are the hands of people offering assistance, monetary and other. His feet are those who stride through danger to rescue the stranded. His knees are those of his children bent in prayer. His arms are those wrapped around the sorrowing. Sometimes, like young Calli, those helpers have great hurts of their own. I think that's the best representation of Jesus there could possibly be. Respond Home |