The Very Best and the Very Worst

The destruction of a hurricane that transformed over the gulf from another summer storm into a category 5 murderer has sucked the life from thousands of people, destroyed countless homes, rendered a major American city uninhabitable for the foreseeable future, and unleashed immense suffering, utter despair and absolutely putrid evil. And as the generosity and compassion of the American spirit flourish and produce responses from every corner of the nation, there’s an outcry because the pipeline of help can’t move fast enough through the destruction and flood waters to produce the pictures of healing that we so desperately long to see.

Disasters are terribly inconvenient, and many people seek only to name the perpetrators, cast blame, write a few checks, and expect the government to fix the problems. We want to see happy images on our televisions, and we want to see them quickly.

But instead, with the civil structures of New Orleans flooded away, it is a heart of darkness in the longtime troubled city that has filled the vacuum and produced the environment of a prison riot, with the inmates in control of major sectors. The collapse of civil authority has exposed the dark depravity of the city’s underside.

And yet, goodness will prevail. The void of hope has touched our hearts, and there will be help for the thousands upon thousands of families who find themselves homeless and with no idea how they will rebuild their lives. Massive amounts of aid are streaming to the areas of need, even as the coastal refugees are making their way to Houston and Dallas, Birmingham and Memphis, even to Atlanta and beyond.

It is a dizzying conflict of good-hearted generosity and positive action seeking to replace the pictures of devastation and sheer evil.

--James Jewell