Mississippi's Finest

I am a Mississippian. I was raised here, and we live, work and worship here now. I love Mississippi and its people and all of our beautiful, ugly, loving, messy and harsh history. I am proud of Mississippi’s hospitality and our reputation as kind, friendly people. I am blessed to have been raised in an era of integration and reconciliation, to have been a white student in a predominantly black public high school and now to work with and for people of diversity and integrity. We have suffered unprecedented pain in Hurricane Katrina. My family and most of our community were spared from the deepest cuts, and our church is blessed to work in the midst of the storm and provide aid and succor to many being overlooked by larger efforts.

Even so, we are receiving such service from the rest of the country as to overwhelm any expression of gratitude and pride. What beauty to receive compassion from so many foreign sources, what grace to enjoy the relief of strangers in hard times. The day after the storm, we drove our little family to refuge in north Alabama and were met by lines and lines of utility crews pouring south from Ohio and Pennsylvania. In our second night in Alabama, my grandparents’ church deployed a horse trailer full of bottled water and cash down the roads to Meridian, Mississippi, even as the drivers could not be sure of fuel enough to return. On our way home on Tuesday, I witnessed convoy after convoy of National Guard and regular Army trucks racing to provide fuel and water from diverse points. We watched lines of police and emergency crews from Birmingham and Dublin, Ohio. The crew who turned our power on, almost one week to the hour, were from North Carolina. Our church has received trucks of supplies from Tennessee, Illinois and Missouri, at least, and our church has volunteers today from South Carolina, Illinois and the city-state of Memphis. Churches from Arkansas to Colorado have offered to house the displaced. We have received offers of volunteers from scores of other states, clamoring to work, to clean, to serve and heal in Mississippi.

I have offered praise and gratitude to the Father for this outreach, yet one scene of aid alone has brought tears to my eyes. Traveling home through Tuscaloosa, Alabama, Monday, I met a line of empty buses with a police escort rolling toward the disaster. As I met the escort on the highway, I was stunned and crushed to see the buses led by a cruiser emblazoned with a bold, blue “NYPD.” Here was the city who suffered so much four years ago and who received so much aid and love from around the world, donating buses, drivers and police to serve our rural, poor, parochial neighborhood so far from Manhattan. What grace, what beauty, what love is this in a time of desperation.

We are blessed beyond words with the grace and protection of our Father, and we are rich beyond imagination in this nation. We are called now to great deeds and service, courage and long-suffering. We were spared to serve those who were not. Unforeseen opportunities confront us to love, and we pray to see those who are hidden in refuge. We are called to mourn, to work, to love and to give glory to our Father Who weeps, Who protects, Who delivers, Who provides and Who heals. Hallelujah.