Faith in the Face of Disaster: UU Response to Hurricane KatrinaPerhaps Now Is the Time
A prayer by the Rev. Lynn Thomas Strauss
Minister, Unitarian Universalist Church of Rockville, MD
We are survivors again.
Again you and I have been spared.
Why us?
As the waters of the Hurricane carry away the last hopes of a city.
As the poor are left to walk through the toxic streets no jazz band playing.
As the sick and old are stranded--surrounded by the debris of other lives.
We go on sleeping in comfortable beds, eating favorite foods,
flushing our toilets and deciding what to wear.
Why us?
There has always been this other world of devastation and unnatural grief.
There has always been a profound silence at the city center.
And there have always been brave men and women
setting up signals across vast distances.
Always we have tried to imagine other lives.
Always we have tried to find each other- to make love, to reconcile, to construct peace.
Perhaps now is the time, perhaps this is our purpose...
to wake up, to give away all that we have, to reach out to those
living in the streets without water, food or light.
Perhaps now is the time to construct peace.
(inspired by a poem by Muriel Rukeyser)
Faith in the Face of Disaster: UU Response to Hurricane Katrina
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