Late Thursday evening, I told Margaret if she didn’t mind, I was going to a movie. I knew enough about “Munich” to know it was a story I was interested in and that she would not enjoy it. Three hours later, I walked out of the cinema with mixed emotions. Following the killing of the Israeli athletes at the 1972 Olympics in Munich, Germany, a small band of commandos sought out the assassins and exterminated them one by one. This Steven Spielberg movie is quite different from anything he’s has done before, and I thought it might be the diversion I needed. What did I need? Probably a good western. A good old-fashioned clear-cut moral tale of good and evil, with good winning decisively. But it was not to be.<\/p>\n
The protagonist (that’s the hero, remember?) was not a professional killer but a family man, deeply troubled by the revenge killings he had to do. The bomb-maker was tormented because he saw Judaism as all about righteousness–“It’s a beautiful thing, right?” he said–and ended up destroying himself with one of his creations. In short, there was wrong on both sides, perhaps a little right on each side, and me caught in the middle. This was not the movie I had wanted.<\/p>\n
I’m in the middle of a novel about the Battle of Waterloo, Lord Wellington and Napoleon and all that; it’s my bedtime reading and I get about 5 pages done before turning off the light, so it’s taking forever. But I’m about to lay it aside. The sides get too complicated, too many good guys on the bad side and crazy people on the good side. I don’t need this at this point in my life. I have enough complication in the real world.<\/p>\n
Wednesday morning, the Times-Picayune presented the report of the Bring New Orleans Back Commission that was released later that day. Some of the recommendations from this distinguished panel include halting all renovation and rebuilding in the flooded zone for 4 months, turning large areas of the city into parks and greenspace, building a regional transit system which would include light-rail to Baton Rouge, streamlining local government (consolidating many offices, cutting out excessive assessors and courts and judges), and preparing a flood control system based on the Dutch model. I’ve not read the actual report and at this point, don’t know how to get hold of one, but only the synopsis in the newspaper. Immediately, however, people started hollering throughout the city.<\/p>\n
\nAll day Wednesday, special interest groups were on television, complaining about how their homes and neighborhoods and businesses and what-not were being left out. The New Orleans City Council went before microphones and unanimously opposed many features in the plan, especially the part recommending that certain sections of the city be left open. These council members have cow-towed to their own residents for so many years without a thought to the best interests of the city as a whole, they do not know how to do the right thing. This, I remind you, is the council that voted the other day to recommend to Saints owner Tom Benson that a local boy should be made coach of the football team.<\/p>\n
I was hoping it would be simpler. Clearer. Easier. Blacker and whiter, if you will. Instead, it’s going to be an uphill fight to get anything really helpful done. Our governor and mayor will have to get their heads together and agree on a workable plan and then show some courage in working the plan. People will yell to high heaven, but nothing, absolutely nothing is going to please everyone. President Bush was in town all day Thursday, saying on the radio that “New Orleans is a great family place to visit,” sounding for all the world like he was reading a script written by Mayor Nagin. I hope he had some backroom visits with the gov and the mayor and told them how things have got to come together if we expect federal help.<\/p>\n
A caller to WWL radio Wednesday afternoon wanted everything to go back to the way it was before the storm. Host Garland Robinette said, “You liked the city the way it was before Katrina?” “Yes, sir. That’s the way I want it.” Garland said, “Sir, we were crime central of the USA and had the worst schools system on the planet. Drugs were everywhere, parents were afraid to let their children walk outside the house. You want it that way?” “Oh no,” he backpedaled. “I didn’t want that. Just everything else.” Yes sir.<\/p>\n
Driving home from Alabama Tuesday, I picked up a popular preacher on the car radio. He was preaching about Jesus. “Before His death, Jesus said, ‘I have finished the work you gavest me to do.'” Then, he addressed the radio audience. “Friend, if you knew you were to die tomorrow, could you look back over your lifetime and say to God, ‘I have finished the work you gave me to do’? If you can’t, then your life has been wasted. You have been spending your life on the wrong things and you need to repent.”<\/p>\n
“Wait a minute,” I said out loud to the radio. “It’s not that simple. I’m a Christian. I’m a preacher. I love the Lord Jesus Christ. But I don’t know if I can say I have finished all the work He has given me to do. I’ve done some of it right and loused up some of the rest. It’s not so simple, friend.”<\/p>\n
Three times in the last two days, I have had this conversation (or variations of it) with church leaders from other states interested in bringing teams of volunteers in to help us rebuild New Orleans.<\/p>\n
The caller says, “Joe, what our church wants to do is for you to match us up with a good church in your area, one that has been damaged and we can come in and fix up. A church that wants to grow and reach its area for Christ, and we can send in our people for backyard Bible clubs and block parties and evangelistic events.”<\/p>\n
I answer, “Sounds good. But I can’t help you.” “What? What do you mean you can’t help me. Don’t you have some churches in need?”<\/p>\n
“We sure do. We have forty or fifty of them.” “So what’s the problem?”<\/p>\n
“The problem is that the churches that need your repair crews to go in and fix them up have no one living in their neighborhoods. Nobody. They are smack in the middle of the flood zone and the homes are unlivable. For some of these churches, it will be years before enough people live there for them to have worship services.”<\/p>\n
This is always followed by a long pause. Then, “Well, what do you suggest?” That’s when I’m able to tell them the choices that are available.<\/p>\n
We all want it simple. I sure do. Thankfully, some things are simple, but many of the most important issues in life have two or more facets, with good people defending each aspect as the right way. That’s when God’s people learn whether they have what it takes to live up to their calling and show each other respect, give one another grace, cut each other some slack.<\/p>\n
We all need lots of grace and mercy, from one another as well as from the Heavenly Father. Nothing complicated at all about that.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Late Thursday evening, I told Margaret if she didn’t mind, I was going to a movie. I knew enough about “Munich” to know it was a story I was interested in and that she would not enjoy it. Three hours … Continue reading