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Commentary
GEN-X RISING: Practices prepare us for life’s difficulties Andrew C. Thompson, Sep 4, 2008
Andrew C. Thompson
By Andrew C. Thompson UMR Columnist
Three years ago, Hurricane Katrina devastated the Gulf Coast. At a cost of nearly 2,000 lives and almost $90 billion in property damage, it was one of the worst natural disasters this country has ever suffered.
I traveled down to Pascagoula, Miss., in the weeks following the hurricane to do relief work. Pascagoula was one of the easternmost cities to suffer serious damage.
When I arrived, the city looked like a besieging army had been shelling it for weeks.
Some homes were reduced to other piles of rubble. Others had nothing more than foundations left, with no sign that an actual building used to sit on them.
The people who remained were mostly there because they didn’t have anywhere else to go. They appeared to be in shock, and most of them had no idea what they would do to rebuild their homes and their lives.
At the time, I noticed how much of the traffic around the streets of Pascagoula was dominated by church vans. There were vans from the South, vans from the Northeast and vans from the Midwest. A whole lot of them carried the cross-and-flame logo of the United Methodist Church.
When I asked one woman if the government had been much help to them, she responded that the only government she had really seen was local—police, fire, utilities—and that they were completely overwhelmed. She said the real help had come from churches. I remember her saying, “I don’t know what we’d do if you nice people hadn’t come down here to help us.”
I spent a lot of that week riding around in a pickup truck with a local pastor, and I asked him if the stream of Christians arriving in Pascagoula had been pretty steady. He told me that he hadn’t had a day off since the storm, but that he never lacked for volunteers. Every time a big group got ready to leave, another would appear out of nowhere to pick up its slack.
The book of Hebrews reminds us, “Let us hold fast to the confession of our hope without wavering, for he who has promised is faithful. And let us consider how to provoke one another to love and good deeds, not neglecting to meet together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another, and all the more as you see the Day approaching” (10:23-25).
I think about that passage when I am tempted to ease off in my own discipleship. Sometimes worship can seem repetitive or even downright boring. Sometimes I don’t feel like reading my Bible. And sometimes I don’t particularly want to love my neighbor as myself.
But when the church gathers together week after week and engages in the practices of the faith, we are steadily nurturing Christ’s love in our hearts. When we spur one another on to good deeds, we are shaping each other into the compassionate followers Jesus calls us to be.
Even if we don’t always realize it, the Holy Spirit is making us holy, so that the image of God is restored in our souls.
And then, when a Hurricane Katrina hits, we respond almost without even thinking about it.
The sacrificial response Christians made in the wake of Katrina in order to show compassion on their suffering brothers and sisters was remarkable. Some wrote checks. Others gathered needed supplies. Still others took off of work to give their blood, toil, tears and sweat so that victims would know that there was a reason to hope.
Most of the tragedies that strike our lives are not as dramatic as a hurricane. We are much more likely to be touched by the untimely death of a loved one or by a friend who unexpectedly loses his job. But our response in those smaller, more personal tragedies is just as conditioned by the spiritual formation we have received.
As I think back on Katrina, I am grateful for all those sermons preached, those prayers prayed and those potluck dinners attended. Because when it counted, they made a difference.
Andrew C. Thompson
