Victims and heroes are often the same

By Mary Regina Morrell
© Catholic Online 2005

"No age has more proudly asserted man's supremacy over nature, and yet the 'humanism' which proclaimed man's self-sufficiency was accompanied by a sense of powerlessness and frustration." Sydney Cave, 1949

For more than a week now, while on vacation at the shore, I have been trying to write my next column, but no matter where I looked for inspiration the results seemed trivial in light of the tragedy brought about by Hurricane Katrina.

Before the hurricane hit, while others spent their time on the beach, I found myself glued to the weather station as the storm was tracked.

As reporters continued, day and night, to keep the world informed on so great a disaster, they often made comparisons with what might be seen in third world countries. It was hard to grasp the reality that this had happened in America, they had said, and I wondered, "Why is that?"

Why is it hard to grasp that this has happened in America? Has our own human arrogance grown to the point where we seriously believe that we are impervious to such horror? Not us, not here?

Nature, the source of life and livelihoods, is just as often the cause of death and destruction, and, sadly, we have not yet learned that there are some forces that mankind cannot control. But we should have learned from our own history that nature is not prejudiced, does not segregate based on economic status or make moral judgments. The good are as easily swept away as the bad.

As time passed and the magnitude of the tragedy became more obvious, the words of Emerson rose up in my head, "Man is a god in ruins."

The images on the screen seemed to scream it -- the paradoxes of the nightmare evident in the bloated bodies that bobbed in polluted waters while technological genius was seen whirring over head, rescuing those still alive; in a government that is routinely among the first and most generous to respond to crises in other countries but which fell short of responding adequately to it's own people; in a country of great wealth that had a major, historical city whose population included 40 percent at the poverty level and many so poor they had no mode of transportation to evacuate.

While I sat at the Seaside boardwalk, watching heart-pounding rides created with advanced technology and subject to routine inspections for safety, an entire city which sat for years below sea level was now destroyed because it was protected by levees that could not withstand the force of hurricanes which history has shown were likely to hit at one time or another.

I watched in disgust as social analysts and government officials began to place and shift the blame from one person or institution to another - fiddlers while Rome burned.

I even received emails from Christian extremists who see the deluge as an act of God levied on New Orleans for their invitation to celebrate the decadent lifestyle, and others who are ranting about the large number of victims as suffering from their own "self-imposed poverty." How easy it is for so many of us to sit on the sidelines and pass judgment. What will we take away from all this, I wonder?

Will we see how far our culture, our excesses, have taken us from the reality of human existence, from the truth that suffering and death cannot be avoided - even in America. People die, institutions die, cities die - sometimes from external forces of nature, sometimes from disease consuming us from the inside out.

Still, there is hope - the indomitable human spirit animated by God.

Our hope is not in governments or institutions or economies, but in the God who shines through the holy soul - and I saw those souls with my own eyes, pressing on through the destruction and the rancid flood waters of New Orleans.

Victims and heroes, one and the same - holy.

Contact

Diocese of Metuchen
http://www.diometuchen.org NJ, US
Mary Regina Morrell - Associate Director, Office of Religious Education, 732 562.1990

Email

mmorrell@diometuchen.org

Keywords

katrina, victim, hero, hope

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