Stones Cry Out

I really like your blog, bro. I've put a link to it on my site. I might commend to you the reflections of Francis Frangipane(http://tinyurl.com/8xaum)concerning God's judgment and Hurricane Katrina. I have some thoughts on this topic on my blog (http://www.nwithbothfeet.blogspot.com/) . The post is called "Prophets and Doomsayers."

Thanks for a great post. You're right, of course -- not all the armchair theologizing and religious fingerpointing (just as bad as the rampant political fingerpointing) in the world will do anyone any good at this point. "What Would Jesus Do?" -- go out there and help the suffering, that's what. Besides the folks saying that New Orleans in a sense got what it deserved because it was a "sinful" place are just as tone-deaf to the needs of their fellow man as the folks who said similar things after 9/11.

Well said - that's pretty much how I see the causes of "natural" disaster.

We should not be surprised that sinners sin. I don't think God is. He will ultimately judge hearts, and while places like New Orleans and Las Vegas make it easy to let go of your restraint, I'll venture that there are hearts every bit as dark in Des Moines and Duluth as in those places. New Orleans is (was?) only an extreme representation of our desires run amuck, and one reason why we are called to be salt.

I'm not sure why it would need to be a judgment against anything particular to New Orleans or the people who have suffered or died. It could simply be a judgment on the United States or on Western nations, as 9-11 almost certainly was. To the extent that each is a jugment, it's a warning to stop rebelling against God and an occasion for repentance and prayer, which shows why your last point is simply not true. Saying it's a judgment has just as much importance as when Jeremiah or any other prophet would say such a thing.

By your logic, everything bad that happens is a judgement. I won't accept that.

Everything bad that happens is a judgment, in one sense. It's a judgment on humanity. We wouldn't have any of this bad stuff if it weren't for the fall, if God hadn't subjected creation to futility, if God hadn't handed people over to our own wickedness. These things are quite plainly taught in scripture.

The problem comes when people assume that it's a judgment for particular sins that certain people committed or when they assume that it's primarily for the purpose of judgment when it may simply be part of working out of the overall judgment on humanity for sin in general.

Jesus said that the blind man in John 9 wasn't blind because of any particular person's sin, but it's pretty clear that he treats it as a consequence of the fall. He weeps over the consequence of death because of the fall at Lazarus' death, even though he knows that in this particular case he'll raise him for a temporary stay on death, but he grieves over the nature of the fallen world. What he's grieving over also happens to be the explicit jugment God pronounced on humanity because of sin.

I don't think we can do justice to what scripture says unless we keep both things in mind, and you seem to be favoring one over the other as if they can't both be true. I don't know if that's a lot better than those who favor judgment to the point of thinking they know that this is a judgment of particular sins, without any thought whatsoever for the statements that God doesn't delight in the death of the wicked. We need to consider all of scripture, and the insisting that we shouln't point out possible judgment elements of this seems to me to ignore the overall sweep of scriptural statements on judgment in this life.

I wouldn't be surprised if it turned out that, for some people whose lives have been devastated by this, it was God's judgment on them for their rebellion against him. I'm almost 100% sure that, for many whose lives were devastated by this, God was doing something entirely different. God's ways are inscrutable without direct revelation, and we have none on this, but we know how God has tended to do things as reported in scripture, and judgment through natural disasters is one of them. I think we're unfaithful to scripture if we don't consider that this might be a judgment, and those who weren't subject to that judgment should consider if we are right with God at times like this, just as Judah was called to consider their own state when Assyria exiled Israel. It's not exactly parallel, but events like this should be an occasion for our own examination and repentance. That was my main point. The judgment theme is not irrelevant or inappropriate, and it does have immediate practical significance.

Dear Editor:

I personally lived through two natural disasters, (the snow storms of 1967 and 1977) and two race riots-the Long Hot Summer of ’67 and the Martin Luther King Jr. Assassination Riots. During those frightening days and sometimes nights, trapped smack dab in the middle of a West Side Chicago ghetto with the Vice Lords and other street gangs around to make things even worse, I can tell you that some Black people around me behaved badly-to put it mildly.

Most of us did not.

Back then I don’t recall Harry Belafonte, Sidney Portier, Ossie Davis, Ruby Dee, Bill Cosby, or Dick Gregory ignoring the bullets being shot by Black people at Black people so they could grind on about racism. I don’t remember singers or groups like Marvin Gaye, The Temptations or the Four Tops ranting about how much our government “doesn’t love Black people.” Instead, they used their forum to call for peace and calmness in the face of chaos.

Right now, the nation and most of the world is once again being slapped in the face with horrific images of many Black people falling apart and dying in the wake of one of the worst Hurricanes in history. It’s sad. But what is worse are how our so-called Black leaders are responding to the crisis.

I have heard a Black mayor screaming obscenities at the White House. I have heard Black singers saying that our President doesn’t love Black people. I have heard every thing coming from the mouths of ministers, politicians and entertainers, except one little word: RESPONSIBILITY.

I think it’s disgusting-especially in the face of the hard, cold facts concerning New Orleans.

FACT: THE LOCAL AND STATE GOVERNMENT WERE WARNED TO PREPARE FOR THE EXACT SCENARIO THAT TOOK PLACE IN HURRICANE KATRINA.
Experts: Models predicted New Orleans disaster
Friday, September 2, 2005; Posted: 3:11 p.m. EDT (19:11 GMT)
WASHINGTON (Reuters) -- Virtually everything that has happened in New Orleans since Hurricane Katrina struck was predicted by experts and in computer models, so emergency management specialists wonder why authorities were so unprepared.
"The scenario of a major hurricane hitting New Orleans was well anticipated, predicted and drilled around," said Clare Rubin, an emergency management consultant who also teaches at the Institute for Crisis, Disaster, and Risk Management at George Washington University.
Computer models developed at Louisiana State University and other institutions made detailed projections of what would happen if water flowed over the levees protecting the city or if they failed.
In July 2004, more than 40 federal, state, local and volunteer organizations practiced this very scenario in a five-day simulation code-named "Hurricane Pam", where they had to deal with an imaginary storm that destroyed over half a million buildings in New Orleans and forced the evacuation of a million residents.
At the end of the exercise Ron Castleman, regional director for the Federal Emergency Management Agency declared: "We made great progress this week in our preparedness efforts.
"Disaster response teams developed action plans in critical areas such as search and rescue, medical care, sheltering, temporary housing, school restoration and debris management. These plans are essential for quick response to a hurricane but will also help in other emergencies," he said.
In light of that, said disaster expert Bill Waugh of Georgia State University, "It's inexplicable how unprepared for the flooding they were." He said a slow decline over several years in funding for emergency management was partly to blame.

QUESTION: SINCE THE CITY AND STATE OFFICIALS KNEW WHAT TO EXPECT IN THE FACE OF HURRICANE KATRINA, WHERE WERE THE SUPPLIES AND THE MONEY FOR THE PEOPLE IN THE SUPERDOME?

That same week marked the beginning of New Orleans’ 34th Annual “Southern Decadence”, which according to the organizers welcomed 125,000 people into New Orleans for a week of “sexual excess.” It was supposed to kick off on August 31, 2005.

Ray Nagin, that angry mayor we saw on TV, raging at the White House somehow managed to organize food, water and beds for thousands of people coming in for a sexual fest. He even had an official welcome ready a week before Katrina hit. Yet, this same politician couldn’t figure out how to place enough food, water and medical care for half that number in the place they had designated for a disaster shelter. Why?
FACT: NEW ORLEANS HAD A LOCAL POLICE DEPARTMENT. WHERE WERE THEY?

Many of the police officers were reported as taking off their badges and simply not reporting for duty when things began to fall apart.
Thursday, Sept. 1
12:11am.
New Orleans Police Department Status: The situation for the NOPD is critical. This is firsthand information I have from an NOPD officer we're giving shelter to. Their command and control infrastructure is shot. They have limited to no communication whatsoever. He didn't even know the city was under martial law until we told him! His precinct (5th Precinct) is underwater! UNDERWATER -- every vehicle underwater. They had to commander moving trucks like Ryder and U-Haul to get around. The coroner's office is shut down so bodies are being covered in leaves at best or left where they lie at worst.
They don't even know their own rules of engagement. He says the force is impotent right now. They have no idea what's going on, no coordination, virtually no comms, etc. the National Guard is gonna airdrop a radio system for them with 200 radios? They are getting very little direction.
The 3rd District bugged out to Baton Rouge because they flooded out.
His quote: "It's a zoo."
More firsthand information direct from him shortly. He's trying to recover.
I am not trying to be an alarmist, but until we get a military presence of significance in the city, the roving gangs of thugs own the streets

And there’s even worse news…

Wednesday, Aug. 31, 2005 10:21 a.m. EDT New Orleans Cops Join in Looting A handful of police in hurricane-ravaged New Orleans joined with looters yesterday in cleaning out store shelves and pilfering merchandise that had nothing to do with survival. While the overwhelming majority of Big Easy cops were performing admirably under staggeringly difficult circumstances, an NBC camera crew filming looters at a local Wal-Mart captured two policewomen filling a shopping cart to the brim with shoes.
Asked what she was doing, one of the unidentified officers told reporter Martin Savidge: "I'm just doing my job" Her partner apparently continued looting unfazed by NBC's presence.
The New Orleans Times-Picayune also carried reports of police looting, noting in Wednesday editions:
"Some officers joined in taking whatever they could, including one New Orleans cop who loaded a shopping cart with a compact computer and a 27-inch flat screen television. Officers claimed there was nothing they could do to contain the anarchy, saying their radio communications had broken down and they had no direction from commanders."
"We don't have enough cops to stop it," one beleaguered cop told the paper. "A mass riot would break out if you tried."

DAVID MARK: New Orleans citizen, Raymond Cooper, told CNN the situation was dire.

RAYMOND COOPER: When we got here there was no one to tell us what to do, no one to direct us, no authority figure. They had a couple of policemen out here, about six or seven policemen told me directly when I went to tell them, hey man, you've got bodies in there, you've got two old ladies that just passed, just had died, people dragging the bodies into little corners.

One guy, that's how I found out. The guy had said, hey man, anybody sleeping over here? I'm like, no. He dragged two bodies in there. Now I just found out there was a lady and an old man. The lady went to nudge him. He's dead. And (inaudible) bodies. And you've got these young teenage bodies running around, they're raping these girls.

DAVID MARK: And the authorities don't appear to know what's happening.

QUESTION: WAS THIS LOCAL LAW ENFORCEMENT INCOMPETENCE THE FAULT OF THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT?
NO. And quite a few of the officers who should have been out saving civilians were just as Black as I am. Yet, they refused to save Black people. Where was their “love?”

FACT: MANY OF THE RESCUERS WERE UNABLE TO GET NEAR THE SICK, THE ELDERLY OR THE STRANDED, BECAUSE SNIPERS AND LOOTERS WERE SHOOTING AT THEM.
Many volunteers risked their lives to rescue residents stranded in and atop their homes. Other people selflessly shared what little necessities they had on hand.
But food, fresh water and medicine soon grew scarce. Thousands of hungry and tired storm victims became restless waiting for buses to evacuate them from the ruined city. In the midst of this desperate situation, human nature reared its ugly head.
Fights broke out. Police were fired upon. Vehicles were carjacked. Stores were looted. Women were raped in the restrooms of the Superdome. Every New Orleans hospital reported that, as evacuation helicopters tried to land, people shot at them, shouting, “You better come get my family.” At two hospitals, patients had to be moved to higher floors to escape looters. Because street gangs and other criminals vastly outnumbered the police, National Guardsmen had to be sent in to help restore order. Despite this, a National Guard military policeman was shot in the leg as a man scuffled with him for the MP’s rifle. Rescuers in boats and helicopters had to suspend rescue operations when their valiant efforts were met with gunfire. (“The Real Truth”)
QUESTION: WHAT COLORS WERE THE PEOPLE SHOOTING AT THE RESCUERS? WHAT COLORS WERE THE RAPISTS? DID THEY COME FROM THE WHITE HOUSE OR WERE THEY LOCAL?

The people with guns weren’t forcing their way out so they can live, but running wild so people can die. Black and White people tried airlifting out the sick and the dying. But, snipers shot at them. Black snipers.

What does it say about our values as a culture when we shoot ourselves?

The singer, Kanye West says, “George Bush doesn’t care about Black people.” Well, the Black people in that city and in that dome had every opportunity to care about each other as Black people right then and right there and for the most part they failed to care at all.

We, as a people used to hold ourselves responsible for our own behavior. Our elders said, “Clean up your own backyard, before you start pitching a fit at someone else’s mess next door.” Back then we didn’t blame good or bad White people for bad Black behavior.
I think it is time that we followed that advice and started taking a good, hard look at what we are responsible for in our own lives.

It is easy to blame the people in Washington D.C. for the chaos in New Orleans. But the FACTS are that both the White and the Black politicians in the Big Easy have known for years that their ability to respond to a hurricane or flood was pathetic. The morals and civic honesty in that town with cesspool like factories and a sex trade that featured live Triple X shows with animals and children were a joke. No one cared about this underbelly of laziness and corruption when the sun was shining. But the storm suddenly turned the world’s attention to New Orleans and what we are seeing isn’t very pretty.

In the aftermath, we need to ask some questions about local responsibility. Where was the money that the local government had allotted for hurricane preparations? It certainly didn’t end up in the Superdome. Where was the local, financial in terms of support for the levees and gas for the buses that could have evacuated the people still left in the town before the levees broke? That was discussed in the many pages of reports written before the disaster. Why weren’t they implemented?

1) There was local and state money available to purchase what was needed days before that storm hit. WHY WASN’T THAT USED? HOW WAS THAT SPENT?

2) There were buses and trains ready to take everyone out of the city.
WHY WASN’T THAT DONE? WHO WAS LOCALLY IN CHARGE?

3) There were enough people and guns able to band together and protect each other when the rapes and the looting started. WHY DIDN’T THE PEOPLE PROTECT THE WEAK AND INNOCENT?

I mentioned that I had been through four instances of both natural and manmade disasters. I survived rioting and looting many years ago because Black people stopped blaming the “Big House” and took care of our own, instead of shooting each other.

And then, once the smoke cleared, many people wanted to blame the officials somewhere else for they saw as an inadequate response to our problems. But in Chicago’s case back in 1977, we found that the money earmarked to clean up our natural snow disasters turned up in the pockets of many of the local officials who were supposed to be in charge of emergency preparedness.

Could we have the same situation in New Orleans 2005? Could there be money earmarked for hurricane response missing from the local coffers? Is anyone going to ask at all? Or is that being too politically incorrect?

When a super storm came to one of our biggest cities, our Black leadership was found to be inadequate in every way. It’s time to repent, Black America! It’s time to get back to our old values and do what’s right instead following after Sodom and Gomorrah.

Now, as a people, are we going to take some responsibility and deal with these hard questions? Or are we going to continue to blame the White Man in the Big, White House?

Yours truly,

Trimelda C. McDaniels, Episcopal Pastor
Christ Charismatic Liturgical Church