A wonderful, tiring day in New Orleans.
Busses to a former Walgreen’s Drug Store which will become All Souls’ Episcopal Church in a new church start, post Katrina.
Vans to various worksites.
A FEMA trailor in the front yard. An elderly woman, living there alone. Waiting for her house to be rebuilt.
Four young adults (volunteers) as crew bosses, teaching twelve of us about hanging sheet rock.
Five hours of hot, sweaty, humid work. Masks because of the dust…and mold still remaining in this house.
Measure the space…measure the sheet rock…cut the panel…carry and mount it…secure it with screw guns.
Four and a half hours later…with the young “regulars” and us old one-day volunteers…two rooms completed…clean up.
Others of us in mobile medical units…intaking patients…taking blood pressures…doing diabetes testing…listening…
Vans back to the new church start…a block party, complete with fried chicken, red beans and rice, and a jazz band.
Speech from an African American city council woman, praising the Episcopal Church, the Diocese of Louisiana and (even) the Archbishop of Canterbury.
Bus ride to the hotel…and a blessed shower…
Mission…however truncated and symbolic…
Unity…if only for a day…
That We All May Be One 
September 23, 2007 at 1:12 pm |
It is a valuable unity bishop. I think this bears mentioning again. I worked in Pass Christian, Mississippi with the Falls Church (Virginia) in hurricaine relief. We pulled together people from many other denominations. We have a permanent presence there and have laid out plans to build many more homes. The program is premised on the idea that across America one church would sponsor one home. We are looking well beyond denominational lines. When I was at the jobsite we had brothers and sisters from different denominations. We were working in the unity of the mission and the unity of the love Christ. These ties are much stronger than liturgy or polity. If for a time we can step apart from one another in the US but maintain the ties to even these smalls things it is a place from which we can rebuild the trust needed to heal the communion. It is time for the Episcopal House of Bishops to lead with clarity one way or another.
October 29, 2007 at 12:52 pm |
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