From the Salmon

I’ve been pretty focused this week on my posts about conversation and reconciliation. And so I haven’t really taken the time to process everything that has happened in the aftermath of this week’s disaster. I’m still a little shellshocked by it all. It’s hard to wrap my brain around the fact that this is happening in the United States. I’ve been close to tears most of the day.

Even if I don’t have much to offer, others do. I’d like to point you to a few posts that I have found particularly thought-provoking or moving recently.

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Rick at A New Life Emerging is about where I’m at:

So I sent my check, now what?

Do I go back to bitching about traffic here in the Bay Area?

As I sit and watch I feel powerless and helpless to help the helpless and powerless. I pray.

Something seems wrong, really wrong. I feel angry.

Imagine what it is like to be there.

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Zossima at Forgetting Ourselves points us in the right direction:

My request of all of us is several-fold: First, grieve. True compassion is rooted in understanding. It arises from stepping into another’s shoes. And the truly compassionate rise above finger-pointing and the temptation to exploit victims for politcal gain. Second, help the people who are suffering right now. Third, seek the truth, not evidence to bolster your chosen beliefs. Why did the levee break? Why aren’t there massive airlifts of Evian trucks into the heart of New Orleans, Biloxi, and Mobile? Seek the truth regardless of how it affects your political party of choice. Fourth, be willing to ask the tough questions, including, “Why are all those people down there black"� What role have we had in creating conditions in our wealthy country where certain races and classes of people are more at risk from a natural disaster than others?

Where you live should not decide
Whether you live or whether you die
—Bono, “Crumbs from Your Table”

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Publius at Legal Fiction watches the heart-breaking video footage:

Katrina has also, for the moment anyway, pried open our eyes — Clockwork Orange-style — and forced us to gaze upon the human face of poverty. The invisible statistics have materialized into visible breathing people wasting away at the New Orleans Convention Center. On this issue of poverty, Brown said something that I found very revealing on Nightline. He said that part of the problem was that FEMA was not expecting so many people to have remained in the city. After the hurricane passed, thousands suddenly appeared out of the woodwork so to speak and no one knew they were there. But these people have always been there — they were just invisible to most of us (myself included). But when you do see (when you are forced to see) the scale and magnitude of the poverty in New Orleans, it makes you wonder why the richest nation in the history of the planet Earth would allow so many to live in such squalid conditions. And you wonder what exactly that says about our values.

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Caleb at Mode for Caleb looks at technological progress and our ideas of what we “ought” to do and what we “can” do and states that all of us who can, ought to give:

But the basic premise--that our sense about what we are capable of affects our sense about what we are culpable for, and vice versa--is difficult to dispute. And undoubtedly, we can do more today to help distant, suffering strangers, without even getting up from our chairs or opening a new browser window, than previous generations could. So we ought to do at least some of what we can. Sure, you can point out that your dollars might not go directly to the person you just saw on CNN, that waste or greed or ineptitude might waylay your alms. But are we really prepared to argue that this absolves us of giving, considering how little twenty dollars costs us compared to how much it could do? (If you are prepared to argue that, read this and get back to me.)

The weight of these arguments all bear heavily on my mind and heart. But there’s another side of Haskell’s argument about the ability of technology to change our “moral universe.” The fact is that the same technology that shrinks that moral universe, and makes it possible for us to do more, literally at the click of a button, also makes us more aware of all the suffering strangers there are to help. So much suffering in so many places at the same time. So much suffering. So much suffering. So much suffering. The technology that makes it possible for us to care for more distant strangers does not necessarily leave us feeling empowered; it can, at the same time, make us feel more powerless.

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Catholic Girl at Bad Catholic points out that we need to let other countries help us in our time of need:

When this story came across today, I almost wanted to cry. El Salvador, Honduras and the Dominican Republic want to send help. They want to do what they can, even though you might think they’ve got enough problems of their own and would leave us to fend for ourselves. They want to give what they have. Amazing. Canada, Germany, France, Russia—all nations that have taken a lot of derision in recent years from half of the U.S. because they didn’t like our war. They want to help. Jamaica. Japan. China. Belgium. Venezuela!

Yeah, there’s often political posturing involved in offers of aid. No doubt there’s some here too, at least in some quarters. But there’s also political posturing involved in its refusal—and of course Bush said we didn’t need their help because goddammit, we’re Americans and we bleed red, white and blue and we don’t need foreigners meddling in our disasters. The State Department quashed that attitude pretty quickly, it sounds like. Good.

Because you know what? Even if we don’t technically need the help, we need to let people help us. We need to lean on those who want to hold us up. It is touching that they care. And people do, even if governments don’t. They love their neighbors. That’s how love changes the world. That’s what Jesus would do. I really believe that.

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Tim at Anabaptist Monk says that these are our people:

Why do we romantize the poor when Jesus speaks of them? Do we picture them as these humble, unassuming victims of the system who after receiving some compassion and human touch from us would be able to pull themselves up and live productive, contributive lives? For any who make an attempt at connecting with poor people in America, you know that it can often be a frustrating endeavor. Rewarding, but often frustrating.

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These are our poor. It’s harder to romanticize them. They are poor for a variety of reasons that we cannot begin to solve right now. But we need to help them because they are human and so are we. And if that isn’t enough of a reason, then we need to do it because Jesus said they are more highly valued than we are. Strange as it may seem, this is the upside down logic of the Kingdom of God. If we are God’s people, then these are our people. We need to go get them.