Wounded Bird

Painting by Luiz Coelho, Sr.

Luiz Coelho is a dear virtual friend who lives in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, and works in one of the poorest Episcopal parishes in the city, Christ the King, located in the City of God slum - one of the most dangerous in the city. God bless Luiz and the priest, Fr. Eduardo, with whom he works and the people of the parish.

Luiz's father, also named Luiz, passed away in 1990. He was an artist. Luiz sent me a link to the website which features pictures of his father's art, paintings and water colors, which the family still owns. The site includes a brief biography.

Luiz pointed out to me that one of the paintings is named "Wounded Bird". His father painted the picture a few months before he died, and Luiz helped him to choose the colors and the title. When I went to the site, tears came to my eyes when I saw the painting. There it is up there, with the same title as my blog. Isn't it beautiful?

I asked Luiz' permission to link to the site and copy the painting and post here. I choke up every time I look at the picture. It seems like a gift from God.

Luiz blogs at Wandering Christian.

Note: I corrected the name of the parish in which Luiz works.

Clergy Need Counseling

From the Associated Press:

Clergymen struggling to comfort the afflicted in New Orleans are finding they, too, need someone to listen to their troubles.

The sight of misery all around them — and the combined burden of helping others put their lives back together while repairing their own homes and places of worship — are taking a spiritual and psychological toll on the city's ministers, priests and rabbis, many of whom are in counseling two years after Hurricane Katrina.
....

Almost every local Episcopal minister is in counseling, including Bishop Charles Jenkins himself, who has been diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder.

Jenkins, whose home in suburban Slidell was so badly damaged by Katrina that it was 10 months before he and his wife could move back in, said he has suffered from depression, faulty short-term memory, and difficulty concentrating or sleeping.

Low-flying helicopters sometimes cause flashbacks to the near-despair — the "dark night of the soul" — into which he was once plunged, he said. He said the experience felt "like the absence of God" — a lonely and frightening sensation.

This is a serious problem not only for pastors, but for all in the helping professions. Please pray for them.

Roman Catholic priests have not reported any unusual counseling needs, said the Rev. William Maestri, spokesman for the Archdiocese of New Orleans. He said one possible reason is that priests do not have wives or children to support and protect.

Despite the seriousness of this article, I burst out laughing at the reason the Rev. Maestri gave for his priests' apparent superiority in mental health.

Yes! Celibacy is best! The Roman Catholic celibate priests are strong and stand up to life's adversities on their own, without any need of outside help. Or could the Rev. Maestri be in denial?

Since Fr. Maestri is the spokesman for the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of New Orleans, he is often quoted in the media. On several occasions, I have found that his remarks indicate that he is somewhat clueless on various subjects. He has a history with me.

Please include the Roman Catholic priests in your prayers. I believe they may need prayer as much as the others.

The Day The Levees Broke

Two years ago today the levees broke. The levees which were built to protect New Orleans from flooding failed, and New Orleans drowned. Remember there were two events, Katrina and the levee breaches. The levee breaches were not a natural disaster.

From Paul Krugman (behind the wall at TimesSelect) in the New York Times:

Two years ago today, Americans watched in horror as a great city drowned, and wondered what had happened to their country. Where was FEMA? Where was the National Guard? Why wasn’t the government of the world’s richest, most powerful nation coming to the aid of its own citizens?

Leave it to Krugman to say it so well.

Future historians will, without doubt, see Katrina as a turning point. The question is whether it will be seen as the moment when America remembered the importance of good government, or the moment when neglect and obliviousness to the needs of others became the new American way.

Do read the whole column if you can.

Our Bishop Speaks

Wow! Bishop Charles Jenkins of the Episcopal Diocese of Louisiana has written a letter stating what he'd like to say to President Bush if he had the chance. It's here:

Excerpts from the letter:

Recognizing our vulnerability, not to terrorism, but to the deadly force of severe weather, I would like to ask the President how he plans to clearly demonstrate his calculation of our people’s worth and his government’s commitment to our safety? The question is one that Providence has put to this President, and it is one of those tests all human beings dread – the kind that determines who you really are.
....

The volunteers of this country are still coming in larger numbers than ever to help heal the lives of their fellow Americans – the same vulnerable Americans we saw trapped, suffering and dying on our televisions two years ago this week. And those “looters,” “those people down there” as the President has called us, are proving to be some of the most courageous and resilient citizens of this land. Mr. President, did you know that according to a survey by the Kaiser Family Foundation, 98% of survivors interviewed in the Houston Astrodome following the federal flood said that their faith in God is what had enabled them to survive? I am proud to be one of “those people.”
....

This is what the gathering grief and anger of a nation is about this August 29, 2007. The people of this country still honor the social contract between citizens. We need to see clear evidence that our President shares this humanity, conscience, and sense of moral duty.
....

We can be reconciled, Mr. President. New Orleanians are a long-suffering and forgiving people. But to be so you must show us that you see and value our humanity before it is too late.

Please, please take to time to read the entire letter. It's passionate and excellent. You won't be sorry.

Thanks to Ormonde at Through The Dust for calling the letter to my attention.

My Katrina Story

Two years ago, when Katrina was approaching in the Gulf of Mexico, I did not have a blog. At that time, I commented around at several of my favorites. Almost every day I visited and often commented at the Dharma Bums blog, run by Roger and Robin, two of the nicest, gentlest folks I ever virtually met. They post about nature, politics, and whatever strikes their fancy. In addition to their writing - which is excellent - they post their own gorgeous pictures, mainly of plants, animals, and insects from the area where they live.

After Katrina, once I was home and had internet access, I sent them an email, telling them of my family's experience during Katrina. They were kind enough to post it on their blog. Since I still have it, I decided to post it here on my blog near the second anniversary.

Tuesday, September 06, 2005
Words from Louisiana
we have come to know a virtual friend through the internet who lives close to New Orleans. she was kind enough to send us some creole heritage tomato seeds when we requested them after she left some comment mentioning them. she is among the kind and intelligent people who view our offerings here, and often leaves interesting and insightful comments. you may have noticed her wit and perspicacity in comments on other blogs. we e-mailed her shortly before the hurricane came ashore offering our best wishes for her and her family, not knowing if she would even be able to receive our note. she sent a short e-mail back, letting us know that she and her family were safe and secure, from the local library in the town to which they had repaired. we offered to post anything she might wish to send us about her experience. today we received the following:

"Your weather report post is great. The bastards have already started to blame the victims, the locals, anybody but themselves. Homeland Security and FEMA were worse than useless before Katrina and in the immediate aftermath.

My emotions alternate between deep sadness for the people of the city I grew up in and fury at the Bush administration for their ponderously slow response.

As you know by now we have no homeland security. What all the billions went for, I don't know. As for Hastert's comments about bulldozing the city, they are despicable and he should resign as Speaker of the House. I heard Cavuto on Fox say that the US should just write off metro-New Orleans - you know - as though it's a failed business. Do they have any concept at all that real people live in the area? Insensitivity of this caliber is beyond belief.

I live in a small town about 65 miles away from NO now. One of my daughters lives in Jefferson Parish, and my sons live near me. My husband and I were in New York City for five days before the weekend of the storm. We were in the waiting area at the airport, on the way home when we found that the hurricane would hit somewhere near the Louisiana coast.

We spent one night at home, immediately began securing our house, and the next morning evacuated to the small farm where my husband grew up, which is located north of Baton Rouge. We could get wind there, but would not be in danger of flood waters. Our children and grandchildren, fourteen in all, evacuated to the farm which contains two rather small houses. In addition we had five dogs and three cats with us. But thank God for those two houses, because we did not have to worry about finding reservations in a motel. I was just so absolutely grateful that my family was together in a safe place. None of us knew whether we would have homes to return to when the storm was over.

The storm was not bad in our area; we had some wind and rain, but came out fine. When the storm was over we were able to get through to our neighbors who had stayed behind to ride out the storm, and we found out our house was OK. In fact all our houses were intact and not flooded, even that of our daughter who lived just outside of NO. A couple of days after the storm, my son-in-law was able to get to his house in Jefferson Parish and take supplies to his neighbor who had stayed behind and helped by feeding their pet chickens. The neighbor had no running water and no power, so my son-in-law was his lifeline. Every few days he would take him supplies.

On his first trip in, he brought back a friend who was living in his house with no running water and no power, so we had fifteen by then, and another dog. The friend was crapping in his back yard because he could not flush the toilet. He is a hygiene nut, so he was freaking out.

But we were the fortunate ones. We have so much to be grateful for. The TV pictures were nearly unbearable to watch. One wonders if help would have come at all but for the TV pictures there for all the world to see. Even Shepherd Smith from Fox News said we looked like a third world country.

Our local university was used as a staging area for evacuees with medical problems for a few days until their conditions were evaluated. They were then moved on to who knows where. I was talking to some of them in the shelter at the Catholic student center, which was a shelter for people with pets. They said the folks from our town had been wonderful to them. I told them that we all knew that it could have been us. Had the storm moved to the west rather than to the east, we could have been in their situation. Either way NO was going to get it.

We are fine now in our home, but I just can't seem to move on. I feel that I'm living in a sort of twilight zone, stunned beyond belief. We have heard from extended family and, so far everyone is OK.

I have ridden out hurricanes before, both Andrew and Betsy, and the 1948 hurricane, but I will never ever do it again.

I see that our friend Ivor Van Heerden, from the LSU Hurricane center is all over the news now as an expert. He has been crying out for years about the danger - to the point where some around here wanted him fired because of his doomsday warnings. They just wanted him to shut up, but he would not. He and some others who tried to give the warnings were right, but they laughed at him."

Around the same time, Rmj at Adventus, moved one of my comments up to a post. Here's what I said:

South Louisiana supplies one half the heating oil to the country. Louisiana has paid in pollution, land loss from pipeline canals, having our area despoiled for the benefit of the rest of the country. I am not proud that we allowed our land to be despoiled and exploited to this extent, but the rest of the country will see how much Louisiana has given to America at great cost to our people and land. Wait until folks see the price of heating oil go up this winter; then they will know. We are viewed as a poor backward state, and in many ways we are, but dammit, we have given our share, and look what we have gotten in return.

I'm sure when all of this shakes out, there will be blame enough to go around, but the whole world can see how the US takes care of its people in trouble.

I hope that we will realize that the greatest military in the world, star wars missiles, and all the billions spent on defense, just cannot protect us from every catastrophe. Maybe we can put the war on terror in perspective and not operate in constant fear of a terrorist attack to the exclusion of attention to real threats which are ignored.

Again, I cried as I read the six pages that the New Orleans Times-Picayune was able to produce. I go back and forth between great sadness and fury, a wild mix of emotions. My family and I are all OK; we have our houses and life looks pretty normal. but we're not really OK, and we won't be for a very long time.

Rmj wrote extensively about Katrina and the aftermath and generally did a terrific job of covering the story on his blog.

This Part Of The World

From David Kurtz at Talking Points Memo:

When my wife was in school in Louisiana, she had a teacher who began a sentence one day with, "When you leave Louisiana and go to America . . ."

Now, Louisiana has long been different from the rest of the country, its French and Spanish colonial roots long pre-dating Anglo influence. In south Louisiana in particular, where the geographic isolation of bayou country was not penetrated until the commercialization of oil and gas deposits well into the 20th century, the Anglo influence not only came late but often came as unwelcome.

When President Bush visited New Orleans yesterday on the second anniversary of Katrina, he said this:

"[T]he taxpayers and people from all around the country have got to understand the people of this part of the world really do appreciate the fact that the American citizens are supportive of the recovery effort."

"I come telling the folks in this part of the world that we still understand there's problems and we're still engaged."

"We care deeply about the folks in this part of the world."

Kurtz: He might as well have been talking to tsunami survivors in Indonesia.

Indeed, he seemed to be talking to folks he saw as very much other - not his people. Parts of New Orleans presently have a very third-world look about them, so how could he claim "this part of the world" as his country, the country he presides over, two years after a major disaster? No way. Just disown the citizens of New Orleans. Address them as people from another part of the world, not as citizens of your own country.

Hat tip to the big "O" man, Oyster, at Your Right Hand Thief for the link to TPM.

Now we'll make a jump. Follow along with me.

We now go to the comments at Of Course I Could Be On Vacation, a parody blog to Of Course I Could Be Wrong, where we carry on while the MadPriest is on holiday. Are you still with me? I know; it's complicated.

Never mind what the post is about, as it's largely irrelevant to my point, but this is from the comments there:

David Austin Allen said...

Mimi,...[d]id you hang in the ghetto much? Perhaps in N'Orleans?

30 August 2007 17:34

Grandmère Mimi said...

David, all of New Orleans is/was a ghetto. It's a foreign city plunked down in the US, at this moment, longing for France to buy it back....

30 August 2007 18:12

My response to the president: Mr. President, the feeling is mutual. I wish you were not the president of my country. I'm ashamed of you as my president.

Later in the comments David said that New Orleans needs to be part of The Netherlands, rather than France, for they would know how to protect the city. I'll drink to that.

Coming Out Story

From Newsweek's My Turn, by Loraine Barr, titled "The Love That Will Finally Speak Its Name":

It took the death of my dear life partner for me to find the courage to come out of the closet.
....

Now I write this after living for 44 years with the most loved and loving, giving, understanding and delightful partner imaginable. For all our time together, we were "in the closet."
....

Finally, after almost nine years since my beloved partner's death, I am able to do what I could never have braved in earlier years: present myself herewith to the world as a lesbian, along with all the women who ask to be judged by the full facet of our characters.
....

Shall I be haunted for trying to tell my story now, when many might still not wish to address it, or shall I, perhaps, be congratulated?

I hope that she will be congratulated. Loraine is 88 years old. I understand that it took courage, even now, for Loraine to speak out. How sad that she and her partner spent the whole of their lives together in the closet. How sad that because of the hostility still so present in our society, many lesbians and gays feel compelled to keep hidden a vital and joyous connection in their lives.

It's just not right. I'm not talking about Loraine, but about all of us who contribute to making our society hostile to lesbians and gays and, indeed, to anyone who appears different - anyone who can be labeled as outside the norm.

First Mother On Katrina Evacuees

Remember Barbara Bush's words during her visit to the Astrodome, where Katrina evacuees were housed?

From the New York Times:

"What I'm hearing, which is sort of scary, is they all want to stay in Texas," Barbara Bush said in an interview on Monday with the radio program "Marketplace." "Everyone is so overwhelmed by the hospitality."

"And so many of the people in the arena here, you know, were underprivileged anyway," she said, "so this is working very well for them."
....

White House officials did not respond on Tuesday to calls for comment on Mrs. Bush's remarks.

Signal of Distress

Image from Suspect Device.

Message from New Orleans: WE ARE STILL NOT OK!

Our Lady Of The Driveway - Part 2

Thanks to Athenae at First Draft for the photo and the title. She took this picture when she was in New Orleans at the end of March, when a group of us led by FD bloggers, Athenae and Scout Prime, gathered to gut a house, view the destruction, and squeeze in a little fun.

The statue of the Virgin Mary stood in a driveway. The head was broken off, but someone had put it back in place. The photo and the title struck me with such force when I first saw it that I have never forgotten it. The image of the statue of Mary in the driveway - "Mary, full of grace" as Athenae calls her - was the symbol of my destroyed and broken home town, my abandoned city, my beloved New Orleans - always full of grace to me.


Our Lady Of The Driveway

O Mary of the Driveway,
Broken like your city,
Your head lies on the ground.
A sorry sight, a sign,
A sign of devastation
Wrought by wind and water,
Angry blow and raging flow.

A passer-by, one of tender heart,
Sees and stops and mourns your head
Lying there apart,
And gently, gently takes it
And replaces it.
There. Our Lady's whole again.
Or so it seems. Or is it so?

Grandmère Mimi - 5-13-07


As hurricane season rapidly approaches, the levees in New Orleans are not properly fixed; the newly installed pumps are inadequate and many don't work. I know that New Orleans is not safer than before Katrina and the levee failures. I'm not an engineer, and I could be wrong, but, from what I've read of what's been done and what's been left undone in the 19 months since the disaster, the city could possibly be less safe than before Katrina.

Lord, have mercy.
Christ, have mercy.
Lord, have mercy.


COMMENT: I posted the above on May 3, 2007. The US Corps of Engineers says New Orleans is safer than two years ago, and that by 2011, it will be much safer as the work continues. My thought is, "We'll see."

UPDATE: I corrected the title of the post from "Our Land Of The Driveway", which made no sense at all.