New Orleans, trip 5

Coming around the curve said it all. We started in St. Bernard’s, worked our way through the lower ninth, stopped to try imagining what the wall of water must have been like… we kept going across the canal, down Elysian Fields, into Lakeview, over to see the 17th street canal, then to Sal’s for a taste of heaven. The elevated traffic circle fascinates me – we drove around it four times. It was only when we started back on 10 toward the city that I felt it. The first time I felt it was when I was 8. The last time, I was 10. Glimpsing the buildings, knowing what’s ahead, going around the curve. It’s coming.

You see the top. It emerges. It gets bigger. It gets closer. The second it comes into view, you let out a sigh that says, “I love this place.”

This is my New Orleans. The places invite you in. The people smile. The love that connects and enjoins the people of this place can be felt as soon as you turn the corner. But that’s not all.

God is here. Say it all you want, condemn the drunks, the gays, the homeless, the drug addicts… say all you want. Get it out. Go ahead. Think I’m a horrible person and blasphemous for loving them. God is in this place, God is with the drunks, the gays, the homeless, and with the addict every time they shoot up. He is here… always has been, forever will be. This is His promise to us. God loves every soul here just as much as He loves you and me. For us not to recognize this is the foremost mistake we encounter with such an amazing city. We cannot come to get past the television images of angry people for being pooled up in a rank, foul smelling place with thousands upon thousands of others packed into such a small place. Would we not be the same way? How dare a person who has not been showed love but rather condemnation by an entire nation for days on end be the least bit angry. Are we not called to love all, despite who they may be or what they may say?

This is the time for love, for action, for coming to this place and doing what Jesus calls us to do. Our Father and his Son, in the words of one much wiser than myself, “bid us to come and die,” to our old lives and begin to live a life of love to all. To reach out our hands and be the hands and feet of Christ in a place that is longing for such a presence. This is our time, as followers of our Lord God in Heaven, to begin bringing the Kingdom of Heaven to earth. This is the time. This is the place. He calls us here to do just that. Now is the time. There is no wait and see. The need is great. The call is now.

May we not run from the love of our Father and his burning desire to instill in us His great love so that we may share such a love with those who are around us and in the places of the greatest need. This is one of those places – a place that the love of Christ himself can change this place forever. The Father’s love will multiply as it is shared and continue to multiply and spread for all to see – it is a glow that will grow to shine upon all the world. Whatever you do, though, spread this love by using words as little as you can. May our words be few and our love be great. May we follow the calling of our Lord, as we allow Him to become Lord of every sphere of our lives. May we come to embrace his awe-filled love and be overcome by the truth that He brings. To do so will leave you breathless, speechless, and amazed. Our God is great… he is on the move. He is seeking us. He is calling us. Are you ready?

Let’s go.


“Do not withhold good from those to whom it is due,
When it is in the power of your hand to do so.
Do not say to your neighbor, ‘Go and come back,
And tomorrow I will give it,’
When you have it with you.”
Proverbs 3:27-28