Reading List: Soul Storm

Soul Storm: Finding God Amidst Disaster, by Bruce Lee Smith covers a wide range of topics related to rebuilding after physical earthquakes, tsunamis, and hurricanes. It also shows how our spiritual side can be engaged in a different kind of rebuilding.

The author challenges us to consider the possible "reasons" for why disasters happen. A classic question challenging faith is this: "If there is a loving God, why does he allow bad things to happen to good people." This question, although patently unanswerable, can lead to insight into the nature of our loving God, and how we should rebuild relationships with Him and with other people in the aftermath of losses and disasters. You can find more about Soul Storm here.

I may write an essay on this book. It's the first thing I've read since graduating with a BA in English, where I've wanted to re-read it and where I've wanted to produce some kind of feedback. Stay tuned. Your comments are welcome.

A Third Trip?!?

You might ask me: "What do you mean, a third trip?"

I might ask you: "What do you mean: 'what do you mean, a third trip?'"

I just received a news letter in my e-mail. It came from Hilltop Rescue and Relief. They are asking for more volunteers, and I can't blame them. There is an even bigger need, and it leaves me wondering why I left Louisiana in the first place. The situation is even in the St. Bernard Parish Government archives.

That may sound crazy, but it was harder for me to leave Louisiana after I came. And everywhere I go, I keep on reading, seeing, and hearing things that seem to say: "Chris, don't you need to go back?"

Regardless of whether or not I go, please comment at my third trip blog.

Where I am...

The work of writing a novel does not seem quite so important. I haven't edited any part of it since I returned from my second trip. I do not now have a timetable for submitting all or part of any of my stories for publication.

I still have story ideas but they are not my first priority anymore.

I am at the same desk where I typed facts from the news on September 11th, 2001. The computer is different, though. I am also different.

The first time I went to Louisiana, I deliberately held back my expectations. I deliberately chose not to expect to be changed in any way--the worst case scenario. I did not want to disappoint myself if I backslid, showed unchristlike anger, swore, or behaved in a way that didn't reflect God. I did not expect that any experience short of dying would make me a better person, because I had tried to be that person by myself, and I had never succeeded.

All I did was clean, remove furniture, remove carpeting, and tear out drywall. I hauled loads in wheelbarrows, hung out with an energetic crowd of teens for four days in Louisiana, and then came home.

As I looked back on the devastation, and as I could see less and less of it on the way home, I prayed: "Please, God, don't let me go back to the way I was before." I haven't felt the same since then. Periodically, as a reminder, I repeat that prayer. Sometimes I even cry as I think it.

This is the true welcome to Inverted Life, when you willingly accept a change in who you are, even if it means sacrificing part of who you were.

"If any man would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross and follow me." (Matthew 16:24)

Where I was...

Five years ago, I was sitting roughly in the same position as I am now. I had my fingers poised over the keyboard, or my hand resting on the mouse. I was doing whatever it was that I was doing--possibly attempting to add to a science fiction novel I was working on.

My brother called me from work and asked if I had seen the images on the news. I told him I had not. He told me to turn on the television. It was about noon when he called, so I missed the initial shock of what was going on. The footage was old--the Pentagon, the North Tower, and the South Tower had already been hit and had already been burning. News switched from story to story at a frenetic pace as the nation amassed details and specifics.

I spent the afternoon typing pieces of information into a text document so that I could follow along. Whenever an update came over the news, I would type it down. Whenever a "current" fact changed enough, I would replace it. I continued doing this until about 6:00 P.M., when the special reports went off the air locally, and local news stations reported about Ohio. Whenever an update came over the news, I would type it down and whenever a "current" fact changed enough, I would replace it.

There was a call for volunteers--I heard of trips being organized to travel to New York to deal with the collapsed rubble and debris. Not knowing how I could help, I remained here in Ohio. I do not know if I developed any guilt over that, or whether I coped with it in the background.

My writing took on an anger that was not present before. The subjects of most of my new story ideas involved chasing down some evil organization, punishing them dearly for the pain they had inflicted. A story idea that I had revised away from referring to terrorism got changed back, a grisly ending put in the works to deal with the perpetrators of the vile act.

Random Lessons from Louisiana

I think my experiences with Louisiana are still sinking in, but I have managed to gather some new wisdom. I have seen panoramic devastation. I have walked neighborhood streets where I and my friends were the only ones there. I have heard voices of pain, doubt, healing, and hope. While we all wish that Hurricane Katrina had never happened, I am thankful that I had an opportunity to help. I am still amazed at how my life has been blessed by helping others.

Here are some things that I have learned:
1.) The mind can slow down, the body can tire with fatigue, but the spirit endures.
2.) The chance to help can come and go in an eyeblink. Act fast.
3.) Change is a traumatic journey that begins with answering God's call, continues through seeking Him earnestly, and ends in His loving arms.
4.) Always endeavor to identify objects in the muck--the junk you sift through represents somebody else's life. Lives may become fragile after a disaster, handle all of them with care.
5.) Make every trip count: don't go into a house without tools, and don't come back out of the house without a loaded wheelbarrow or an armload of debris.
6.) Faith the size of a "mustard seed" can move mountains, remove muck, carpet, drywall and refrigerators. And it can rebuild hope.
7.) Never do anything big without a "buddy." You'll have that person to help you, that person will have you to help him or her, and in the end, you'll both have somebody to thank.
8.) Always be humble: you might not know it, you might not believe in it, and you might never see it, but your little acts of kindness could be God's answer to somebody else's prayers.
9.) There are a great many ways to create faith, but hard work helping others is an amazing way to reinforce faith.
10.) Do not go into adversity expecting a specific change in your life when you come out. Let God reveal Himself in the changes that He has chosen to make in you.

Welcome!

Not everybody gets to choose to "invert." Hurricane Katrina wiped out thousands of houses in Mississippi, Louisiana, and Florida and has become the worst natural disaster ever to strike in the United States. The people who experienced the disaster and its after-effects have had their lives "inverted."

They've had their lives turned upside-down and inside-out.

Ten months after the hurricane hit, I joined a relief effort and got to see a small part of the damage firsthand. Thinking I was "done," I returned home and saw small changes in the way I perceived the world around me. As I returned to a "normal" life, I realized just how different it appeared to me. And then I started to see just how big all those small changes were about to become.

Let me share my experience with you...

Click the links on the side or below:

My first trip
My second trip
My third trip

For reasons of privacy, I have chosen not to use the names of many people who were involved in the actual events I have written here. Please note: if you blog and you've shown your full name on yours, I may end up using your full name on mine. If you know me and want me to use your name to show in my postings, then I will use your name. Or if you see your name here and you want it off the blog, then I will remove it. You can contact me here.