Our first Monday in New Orleans, we went down in Port Sulfur (where the eye of Hurricane Katrina passed through in 2005). It’s a narrow peninsula (about ½ mile across) with the Mississippi on one side and the Gulf of Mexico on the other. When the hurricane came through, both levees were breached, and this area turned into a basin with 15-25 feet of standing water. It emptied, and then filled again, when Hurricane Rita came through less than a month later.
We spent the day listening to Ted Turner, a local pastor and community organizer. He took us to where his house had been, and pointed out his refrigerator, stuck 20 feet in the air in a tree behind where his house had been, where it had landed when the waters receded. Despite having lived there for 15 years prior to Katrina, when he returned home after evacuation, he drove past his driveway, because there wasn’t enough left of his house or surrounding landmarks for him to recognize it. Less than 20% of the community has returned, post-Katrina (3.5 years later).
To be honest, I think some of the students were a bit frustrated that we were just listening to stories, rather than "doing real work." But as we listened to him all day, I was struck by the idea that part of our "real work" was to listen to people’s stories, and to take them home with us… it is these stories that change us, change our perspectives, and make the trip so much more meaningful. Otherwise, we’re just hammering nails and putting studs together to form a wall. It is the stories that put the heart in what we do; it is the stories that draw us back; and from the stories, we work.
It often does not feel like work to listen. But unless we listen, often times our work is awkwardly or ineptly placed. And it does not have nearly the transforming power that it could have, if we were actually working for something bigger.
This is Pastor Ted's "house" (or where it used to be). The tree in the distance houses his refrigerator.
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