"Happy Holidays Good People" from New Orleans...

After more than two years since the arrival of hurricane Katrina, I believe New Orleans gives us a profound opportunity to examine our priorities. In a million years I couldn't have imagined what I was going to encounter. The sights, the lack of sounds, the people, their viewpoints and their stories!

From day one I was struck at how residents in the Ninth Ward greeted me with great expectancy, as if they already knew the "when" and the "why" of my presence. What surprised me even more was how different their responses were to the same experience. "Kristine" spoke about the fact that she never wanted to live in the Ninth Ward in the first place and how the evacuation forced her to travel beyond the state lines, something she had never done before. "A lot of people around here don't want anything from life. I'm going to school and I want to start my own business. I'm never going back to the Ninth Ward."

"Charles", who looked to be in his late forties, talked about being a Ninth Ward resident his whole life and how disappointed he was at those who had not returned and people's lack of response. "It's crazy! People that I grew up with, all my neighbors and friends and nothin' man. Nothin'. Every body's gone and nobody cares."

And then there was "Elena" who was was one of the few who knew who to call and harass (organizations like the LRA, Louisiana Recovery Authority) month after month until she got the help and money that she rightly deserved. "You know, a lot of people just aren't aware of the proper channels. Don't get me wrong, I had to stay after some folk for months, but I knew how to work the system. I knew what I was entitled to." "Elena's" home had to be demolished because of the damage from the flooding, but she now lives in a beautiful modular home (a one level home that is shipped in two halves and put together on site).

Now I had hoped that the survivors of Katrina were going to have a lot to say and they did, but I was equally moved and inspired by the stories of many of the volunteers that I met and talked with.

I met a man in his early forties with the nick name "Jersey" who had come to the Ninth Ward to, as he simply stated, "do something." He had been wandering, trying to find his way in life and befriended a fellow traveller on a greyhound bus ride. During their journey of luke warm cups of coffee, shared cigarettes and discussions of what's wrong with the world they both agreed that they needed to be in New Orleans. I called it a "put up or shut up moment." He had been working in the Ninth Ward rebuilding houses for just over six months, but he had the energy and enthusiasm of someone who had just arrived.

Then there was "Brian" who had been working for a successful investment firm and decided that he could no longer collect a hefty paycheck for something that he did not have a passion for, or interest in. "I was sitting there in my comfortable job with my comfortable paycheck and I'm watching people on T.V. who have lost everything including their loved ones." "I put in my notice and came down here to help out for a couple of weeks." He's been rebuilding houses for almost a year.

There was one young man that I spotted cutting potatoes. He was doing his part of the Thanksgiving meal preparation. He stood out because he seemed very wise to be so young. When "Tommy" spoke he did so without any sense of needing to prove anything or impress anyone. He told me that he got his wisdom from living in more than 220 foster homes by the time he was 17 and for good measure, he also added 15 months of service in Iraq with the Airborne unit before being shot. "Some might say that I've done more living in my 23 years then most do in their entire lives." He came back to New Orleans because it was the city that he had lived in the longest. "My actions don't always conclude in logic, but I have a purpose for doing what I do and I'm not leaving until this place is back to where it should be." "Tommy," it seemed, was just getting started.

Every volunteer that I met had stayed longer than they intended and many were on their second, third and fourth tours of service. I met people who left jobs, relationships and identities behind. I talked with former addicts, convicts and runaways and they were all in New Orleans because they found tremendous meaning in this life serving mission of helping what the Bible calls "the least of us" and doing everything in their power to bring New Orleans back to life. They all had outgrown who they used to be and were in the process of becoming who they needed to be to accomplish this greater good. The irony was that they all lived in what many would consider to be substandard housing, with just the bare necessities as far as I could tell. A lot of twin mattresses with one or two sheets, no televisions, poor heating and folding chairs pushed under discarded tables found in the refuse piles.
And it wasn't unusual to see a lot cereal boxes and tuna cans in the pantries and kitchens that I explored. No gourmet meals on this watch.

No one was saying that it was easy and no one was complaining either, but everyone seemed to be in agreement with what one of the volunteer leaders told me: She said "seeing the face of a person whose house we just built or finding an old photo out of a pile of rubble and rust and giving that memory back to its owner makes this journey, this work and this service worth it."

There is a lot of work left to be done. The reason that the news cameras have stopped showing the in and out of New Orleans, (with the exception of Anderson Cooper's 360), is because it demonstrates the priorities of our leadership. Our house is in complete disarray and we simply choose to put our focus and resources elsewhere.

Margaret Meade said "never doubt that a small group of committed people can change the world, indeed it is the only thing that ever has." Well I'm here to give witness that there is a small group of residents and volunteers in New Orleans and they are creating change one step, one deed, one kind word of support, one house gutted, one wall of sheet rock put up, one cherished item found in the rubble, one house built, one life touched... at a time.

I am grateful to these heroes who have demonstrated through their acts a deeper and more honest expression of life in all of its beauty, humanity and struggle. I am humbled by their recognition that none of us is as strong as all of us and I am even more determined to make a difference for positive change in the lives of others.