It has not been easy doing my job this week. The situation in New Orleans, Biloxi, Gulfport, Mobile, and other places crushed under the relentless fury of Katrina causes a problem for me. It upsets my perspective on other things.

It reminds me of something that happened almost four years ago. The jets had slammed into the WTC and Pentagon just hours before; it was a Tuesday, and I had a full schedule. My first client, a tender-hearted young woman dealing with a painful life situation, walked into my office and sat down on the couch across from me. Tears filled her eyes and, looking directly at me, she said, “I don’t have any problems.”

She did, of course, have problems, but what she was saying was that the weight of the tragedy unfolding in New York, Washington, and Pennsylvania gave her a different perspective. Concerns and unhappiness about things like loneliness, lost relationships, and an uncertain future somehow didn’t seem so important as the reality of terror landed on our shores.

It is the same with Katrina. Especially New Orleans. It just keeps getting worse and there is nothing that can be done to stop it. It is tragic and painful to watch unfold.

I’ll confess something. I’ve been to New Orleans more than a few times and traveled through the area quite a bit. I’ve followed I-10 around the city and crossed Lake Pontchartrain on the way up to Slidell, where it connects with I-12 and continues east and west. I’ve walked down Canal Street and Bourbon Street, eaten creole in great little hole-in-the-wall restaurants, and listened to great blues flowing out of open-air nightclubs. I’ve been to Jackson Square, stood on the levee of the Mississippi River, and had a breakfast of coffee and beignets at Cafe du Monde.

I’ve never liked New Orleans in general or Bourbon Street in particular. I’ve always felt like I needed to take a shower when I’ve gotten back to my car and headed home again. It’s my self-righteousness, I suppose, or perhaps it’s a little too reminiscent of a life I used to live before Christ grabbed me and pull me away.

My confession is this: when Katrina was first forecast to hit New Orleans, a part of me was glad. If ever a city needed to be smacked upside the head and humbled a little bit, I said to myself, it was New Orleans. I was even a little disappointed when the storm made landfall east of the city: this meant it was spared the brunt of the hurricane’s power and was only going to suffer a glancing blow.

And then one part of the levee gave way and the water from Lake Pontchartrain started spilling into the sink hole that is New Orleans. And it’s still flowing. New Orleans was already sinking, but now it’s quickly becoming part of Lake Pontchartrain. A lot of people have died; more will die in the weeks to come. Those who escaped with their lives have no lives to return to. It is literally devastation of biblical proportions.

I’ve heard that some people have said what is happening in New Orleans is God’s judgment on the city for it’s sinful culture. Maybe it is, but I doubt it. What frightens me about what is happening in New Orleans is something Christ said to His disciples:

4 “Or do you suppose that those eighteen on whom the tower in Siloam fell and killed them were worse culprits than all the men who live in Jerusalem?
5 “I tell you, no, but unless you repent, you will all likewise perish.”
- Lk 13.4-5

The people in New Orleans are no different from the people in College Station, Texas, or Madison, Wisconsin, or anywhere else. God allows the hurricanes to blow upon the just and the unjust (cf. Mt 5.45) not because one deserves it and the other does not, but because we live in a fallen world where death is just one levee-break away.

It is a humbling exhibition of how fragile life is and how utterly powerless we are to preserve it. Things as simple, basic, and primitive as nature can destroy our lives in an instant. We are not as secure or strong or smart as we tell ourselves. It is unsettling to be reminded of that.

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I don’t understand why we name hurricanes. Are we trying to make them more personal? Does it give us a sense of mastery? Is it a throwback to when the forces of nature were under the control of various gods? “Katrina” was a manifestation of the force of nature, not the offspring of “Mother Nature.” We don’t name tornados, earthquakes, tsunamis, or volcanic eruptions; why do we name hurricanes? It trivializes the threat and assigns a sense of purpose or motive that is not real. Katrina did not kill anyone; a hurricane of immense power killed hundreds of human beings and destroyed thousands of human lives.


2 Cor 1.13