Faith in the Face of Disaster: UU Response to Hurricane Katrina

A Sudden Storm

A sermon by the Rev. Richard Boeke
at the Unitarian Church - Horsham
and Unitarian Chapel - Billingshurst, United Kingdom
September 18, 2005

“Certainty, assurance, is a quality of being, and not in the... context in which one may be living.” —Howard Thurman

11 September 2001, jet planes are flown into the World Trade Centre in New York. The invasion of Iraq, the Boxing day Tsunami, bombs in the London Underground, 7-7, 2005. Earthquakes, wind and fire. Hurricane Katrina wiping out New Orleans and a hundred other towns and cities. The 21st Century has opened with disaster, terror, and human folly.

11 September, 2001 – Seldom has an image so clearly marked the turning of the world. The World Trade Centre collapses into bellowing dust in 14 seconds. For American this was an introduction to a new age as powerful as the Mushroom Cloud which exploded over Hiroshima. Leaders responded to this attack with words of apocalypse and crusade. President George W. Bush declared America 's “responsibility to history is already clear: to answer these attacks and rid the world of evil.”  Four years later the evil has grown. In response to the assault on Iraq, terrorism has increased tenfold.^[1] Al Qaeda has mutated from a relatively small organization to become a worldwide political movement, with tens of thousands of supporters.

By invading Iraq, the U.S. and Great Britain committed a vast amount of human and material resources. Other needs remained unmet. Many wear the white armb and s which say, MAKE POVERTY HISTORY. In New Orleans, poverty has become HISTORY is another way. As Hurricane Katrina approached, the Mayor and the Police Chief said, GET OUT OF TOWN. Evacuation was ordered.

Hundreds of thousands drove north to safety. But the thousands of poor without cars were left behind.

Rev. Bill Sinkford, President of the Unitarian Universalist Association wrote: “I am so angry … Look at New Orleans.

"Tens of thousands of American citizens, almost all of them poor and black, living in unimaginable conditions with no food or clean water. … I am fighting not to sink into paranoia, though as a person of colour I have a lifetime of experience which would provide ample justification. These last days have provided a picture of what racism and classism look like. Racism is not about individual prejudice. Classism is not about individual poverty. … What was the meaning of “ Mand atory evacuation” … when so many Black and low income citizens had no means to leave the city?

“We are a gentle and generous people. But let us not forget our anger. May it fuel not only our commitment to compassion, but also our commitment to make fundamental changes. … Our religious vision must ask again and again the Gospel question, Who is my neighbour? …  We are and we should be, both a gentle and an angry people.”

So wrote Rev. Bill Sinkford.

It is not that there were no warnings. In July 2000 Time Magazine reported: “If a flood of Biblical proportions were to lay waste New Orleans … A Category 5 Hurricane would come barrelling out of the Gulf of Mexico. It would cause  … overflow, pouring millions of gallons of water on the city. Then things would really get ugly. … Plans to save New Orleans?  The big sticking point… is money. The price tag for a complete solution could be as much as fourteen billion dollars.”

Fourteen billion dollars!  Too much!  Now, perhaps Two Hundred Billion Dollars will be paid out in Federal Aid, Insurance claims, and donations from around the world. On the internet there are thousand s of articles telling that the invasion of Iraq took resources away from the real needs of our world.

Many of these are by Republicans. Paul Roberts, Assistant Secretary of the Treasury under Ronald Reagan, writes:“Distracted by it phoney war on terrorism, the U.S. Government had made no preparations in the event that Hurricane Katrina brought   catastrophe to New Orleans. …  Even worse, articles in  the New Orleans Times-Picayune… make it clear that the Bush Administration had slashed the funding… to strengthen the levees and diverted the money to the Iraq War.”

Each day more revelations come out of ways in which the war in Iraq has taken the world into a raging flood we cannot control. Resources that could have used to repair

the levees of New Orleans, resources that could improve schools and national health care. These have gone into an egotistic conquest of Iraq, a nation that almost nothing to do with 11 September 2001:  A nation that had no weapons of mass destruction.

This story of the tragic beginning of the 21st Century is well known. How can we respond? 

First, we can be political. We can remember the words of Gandhi, “Those who say that religion has nothing to do with politics, do not know what religion means.” This month in London there is a weapons fair, in which buyers from all over the world are coming to bid on English made weapons. The trade in small arms and jet fighters is turning our world into a hell or earth. And the British government is giving guarantees of one billion pounds on loans to a country  to buy our British made jet fighters. We can speak out and vote to say this is wrong, for Britain, for the U.S., for Israel, and China.

Second, we can change our lifestyle to consume less and give more. Eat a fair-trade banana a day for the health of your body and the health of your soul. And find a personal way to help ease the suffering of the world in the gift of your money and your time.

Third, we can cultivate peace in ourselves. The Buddhist monk, Thich Nhat Hanh, practices five remembrances,

1) I will grow old
2) I will become ill
3) I will die
4) All that I care about will perish
5) The only thing that survives are my deeds.

To be human is to encounter death.
Even as we walk in joy, we know that
death may be just around the next corner.
Each day, each hour, may we remember
the essence of religion is kindness:
Kindness starting with your self and reaching out to others.
May we remember
that at the centre of evil is cruelty.
Hating ourselves opens us to hate others.
In the words of the poet Keats,
“Beauty is truth, truth beauty. This is all we know
on earth, and all we need to know.”
Today and every day,
may we take time to contemplate beauty,
in flowers or forest, paintings or people.
Today and every day,
May we take time to quiet ourselves.
To give of ourselves to a person or purpose dear to us.

Sudden storms will come, both from the world without and the world within. In THE TEMPEST, Shakespeare wrote of the result of such a storm. Near the end of the play an actor affirms:

“… The solemn temples, the great globe itself,
Yea, all which it inherit, shall dissolve:
And, like this insubstantial pageant faded,
Leave not a rack behind.
We are such stuff as dreams are made on,
And our little life is rounded with a sleep”  

- Shakespeare – “The Tempest”  Act IV

[1] Mark Danner, International Herald Tribune, 10-11 Sept. 2005; page 1

Faith in the Face of Disaster: UU Response to Hurricane Katrina

• In the Eye of the Storm: Resources and Commentary following Hurricane Katrina

Unitarian Universalist Association
25 Beacon St. | Boston, MA 02108 | 617-742-2100