NOLA

Pastor Scott Downing

To the left I saw what finally appeared to be an open store.  Like the sun nestled near the horizon, the Wal-Mart sign rose above the tops of the cars and cabs of trucks stationed in its vast parking lot.  By now, I couldn’t believe the sense of relief thinking I could stop and get a case of water and maybe a towel for someone who had left theirs behind.

I circled the edges of New Orleans.  Skimming along west St. Bernard Highway in Chalmette, passing Ferry Landing Road where east meets west, as far as the St. Bernard highway is concerned.  It mattered little what side of the van I looked.  Nothing was open.

I thought of the franchise fairs some family attended—signing up for 70 hours a week to make a fast-food drive through the cornerstone of their emerging fortune.  Over there, to the right was a small store that served the community near Borgnemouth Park.  Not so much a store as a place to gather, to talk, to sip a coke or beer and let the humidity wash over you like a heated political conversation.

It was closed.  No one stood near its boarded doors and spoke about the oil companies that ran their rigs and pipes like a border separating the land and Gulf.  No one talked about the upcoming Saints season and the big money that would never make it down on this end of town.

Someplace had to be open: some fast-food joint, some storefront.  But on this drive, little community followed little community in the flood’s insatiable foreclosure.  Damage vengeanced itself on shack and store, on bar and booth, on property and person.

Mile following mile.  Following mile.

The political turf of Wal-Mart meant little as I pulled into the parking lot filled with people and vehicles.  I could already taste the cold water and hear the ice breaking against itself as I would sway the cup in my hand.

My mother is from Louisiana.  As was my brother, sister and me.  My dad, who lies at rest in the San Joaquin Valley National Cemetery, was born in Arkansas.  Louisiana was where we lived until we migrated west to the Golden State.

Now, with no real particular attachment to New Orleans, I drove among its ruins and sensed a deep loss, a personal vacancy.  It was presumptuous of me to even entertain these emotions.  My loss was emotive, moved at the site of such disaster.  Who wouldn’t drive these same streets and be awed and humbled at the wasteland stretched out before them?

My loss may have tapped into a deep reservoir of belonging, of place, of beginnings.  But the loss of those that looked rising waters in the eye and witnessed homes floating and bodies bobbing; those that lost the place to lay their heads at night and kiss their children in the morning as they readied for school – I felt I had no place to stand and weep in light of their tragedy and pain.

My thirst was to be denied.  Even the mighty Wal-Mart no longer slashed prices for the extra-large package of toilet paper or the open-toed slippers.  There is was: the orange ‘X’ painted on its southern wall.  X was ubiquitous.  Filled in quarters that spoke of search dates and teams, bodies found or not: the oval zero told anyone who still looked that the search had come up empty.  Zero never looked so good or was worth so much, I figured.

St. Bernard’s Parish offices had co-opted the lot and placed trailers on it for Parish services.  Food, insurance claims, medical needs – services that struggled to meet the massive needs brought about by a few days rain and a few levees failures.  Nothing would be the same.

As I turned the van out to get back on the road and head to back to North Claiborne Avenue, I realized why I was so responsive to the devastation around me.  Part was a sense of loss in the State of my birth and still the residence of many of my family.  But there was something else . . .

It is something to stand around a woman who sits on her front lawn weeping.  Our crew was there to remove all her tangible memories.  The ones in her heart would remain, but even they were stained now, the toxic flood waters having crept into her soul as effectively as her living room.  She wept for all things lost and the apparent hopelessness of the present.  She wept for neighbors in Houston and Dallas and Alabama.  She wept because her grandmother had Alzheimer’s and couldn’t understand what happened.  She wept because there was really little else she could do but surrender her groaning before a crowd from Clayton.

The Lower 9th Ward of New Orleans was used to weeping.  This was a tough part of town.  The South side of Chicago.  Hunter’s Point in San Francisco, or the Western addition.  North Philadelphia.  East Palo Alto.  But here in the South, poor seems poorer than poor elsewhere.  Relentlessly poor and almost impossible to break out of its grip.  Here, over the years, thousands of women have collapsed on their front lawn or stoops or doorways and sowed tears into the soil of suffering and loss.

Now we watched as the ground resisted yet more moisture poured upon it.  All we could do is let her do this; let her be ravaged by an unspeakable hurt.

Then we set to task.  Ripping and tearing and pulling and prying and hammering and hitting and lifting and carrying and throwing and choking.  We set to task because if there was any hope of recovery for this house, for this one woman and her child and Alzheimer’s grandmother, it would begin here with us.  It would start by our stripping away all that remained.  Every photo, every report card, every crayon-outlined hand affixed to kitchen appliances.  Pots and pans and lamps and books and pictures and dresses and towels and soaps and bottles and plates and figurines and brushes and tile and walls and desks and pianos and baskets.

The cockroaches formed militias to fend off this injurious attack but they reacted too little, too late.  The sheetrock gave way and the bathroom tiles tried one last hold to the plaster beneath.  All to no avail.  It all went until there was no more to be brought out.  The skeletal structure remained, but the muscle, the organs, the arteries had all been removed.

Piled high outside sat the debris of 60 years.

I looked down the street and saw only a few places that were trying to do something.  The Humvees of the National Guard patrolled streets that looked like war torn Iraq.

Even to rebuild meant living in a place where no community was present.  No store was open.  No restaurant served.  No church offered weekly meetings. One thing: your neighbors were quiet.

I stepped out into an intersection and looked up and down the street.  Only a few here and there were making any effort.  So complete was the destruction, so questionable the recovery.

Then it hit me more fully.  It wasn’t only the loss of this one house and this one family.  It was the utter demolition of an entire community.  Two or three nights before Katrina there had been a populated, crammed, and rumble-tough people.  Then, on one Tuesday morning, ALL of that changed.  All of it.

We worked a field and three young men approached us.  It was so hot and humid, and we were doing the work of hacking through eight or ten-foot weeds.  “Are you guys being paid for this?”

I went over to the three.  “No, we’re volunteers just helping out.”

“You aren’t getting paid?  We need a job.  Do you know anyone paying?”

There really was no place for them to work.  They were in an area where all the traditional avenues teenagers would have for work were gone. 

No doubt, this machete wielding would not have attracted their hopes of wages in days prior - - but now there was nothing else.  And even this was not paying.

All community was gone.  The infrastructure that allows us to go out for dinner and a movie was gone.  The little entry job that hints at future responsibility while providing enough for a burger and an old car was gone.  The potato salad and punch at the church pot-luck was gone.

When Connie collapsed to the ground and wept all she had were strangers to console her.  Her neighbors of her own thirty some-odd-years were gone.  She stood for a picture with her new friends.  She smiled a beautiful smile that reflected an appreciated help when so little had been offered by the city powers.  The outside of the hose looked pretty good, but inside it was completely bare.  I knew when we left Connie would have to return to the inside.

And that’s the real base of my sense of loss.  To stand among thousands of homes that are empty now, but yesterday bore life and sorrow, joy and struggle, hope and tragedy is deeply, significantly sorrowful.

Then God whispered. 

“Do you sense the unequivocal need of community?  Do you see the wrecked results of community lost?  What will you do about this when you go home?”

The question was not about New Orleans.  It was about Clayton.  What would I do about Community in Clayton?

In the Apostle Paul’s comments to the elders of the church at Ephesus, he lets them know they will never see him again.  He is going to Jerusalem and he is letting them know things will be tough.  But he warns them that when he leaves there will be those who will seek to damage them, to destroy their community.

He tells them: “Now I'm turning you over to God, our marvelous God whose gracious Word can make you into what he wants you to be and give you everything you could possibly need in this community of holy friends.” Acts 20:32 (The Message)

This community of holy friends.

We have been turned over to God, each one of us.

Paul’s prayer bears the echoes of the masterful intercession of Jesus in John 17.  Space here is too limited, but your Bible publisher has allowed appropriate room for it.  Jesus prays:

“I will remain in the world no longer, but they are still in the world, and I am coming to you. Holy Father, protect them by the power of your name — the name you gave me — so that they may be one as we are one.” John 17:11 (NIV)

When I stand outside my condominium I do not see the destruction of wood and plaster.  I stand amidst an infrastructure that is intact, with power and water.  Just over to my left come the sounds of world-famous artists plying their trade at the Pavilion.  I ease into Safeway and slide my red card for the discounts offered to all who belong to the community of Safeway savings.  Community sustains what I do everyday.

But I am not without understanding that behind these walls and in these stores there is a real and deep need for authentic community: a community of holy friends.  A needed belonging.

There are many types of floods and levee breaks.  All wash away that which is precious.

I sensed God was calling CCC to a new level of commitment.  Repair the levees; restore the seawalls, establish community.

What that means and how that works will always be rooted in the lower 9th Ward of NOLA.  But it will be lived in the neighborhoods of Clayton and Concord, Pleasant Hill and Walnut Creek, Pittsburg and Pacheco.  In your neighborhood.  And in mine.

And I can’t wait.


May God bless and keep you by the power of His name.

In His merciful care:

Scott Downing


SMALL GROUP LEADERSHIP

CCC has quite a few small groups that meet throughout the week in locales all over the Valley.  There are people in CCC who want to know of all the groups – and my last list is not complete.  I need your help!

First, we have a small group leadership meeting on Saturday, October 21, 8:30 – 10:00 am.

At this meeting we want to accomplish several things:

1. A picture of all small group leaders.  I will have a camera to take the pictures – but only you can provide your face!  Please bring your face with you to this meeting.

2.  We want a current catalogue of all small groups, along with meeting times, locations, contact numbers and topic of study.  Are there any age, life-stage or gender qualifications for your study?  Please list them (ie; Men who wear only gray and are no less than 20 years of age while no more that 20.2 years of age).

3.  We want to talk about open enrollment for small groups. By this I mean a time of public awareness of the small groups along with a visible presence on a few Sunday mornings where people can meet and talk with you prior to, between and following Sunday gatherings.

4.  We will have some tips for actual small group interaction and material on facilitating the personalities within a group.

THE CAMPUS IS IN SESSION!

Please take the time to go by the Welcome or Life Development tent an pick up a brochure of the Campus classes being offered this quarter.

Classes offered:

Times, locations and topical synopsis can all be discovered in the brochure.