PeaceBang
The manic mind of the minister -- Auntie Mame Meets Cotton Mather. Blogging about Unitarian Universalism, UU Christian spiritual practice, occasional cultural and political ravings, and the inner life of ministry. PeaceBang is the alter ego of a small town pastor serving an historic New England Unitarian Universalist congregation.
Hey, Southern Cali!
October 24, 2007 on 5:51 pm | In Joys and Concerns, Theological Reflection |I just met with my student minister and we were talking about my favorite quote, “It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God.” (Hebrews 10:31) I’m so fascinated by the way moderns have domesticated God, taking the grey-haired old man thing quite seriously (by that I mean that when people reject God-concepts, it’s usually the grey-haired old man — either the doddering and impotent or raging and vengeful version — that they reject). I rarely hear any one talk about God as pure spirit, undomesticated, glorious, in-breaking and dreadfully inconvenient. I remember actually getting on my knees in prayer during my seminary years and sobbing, “Please stop burning in me so hard.” I felt like the proverbial work horse, “rid hard and put away wet,” all foamy on the flanks at the end of the day, definitely on the edge of breaking, starting to feel for that famous bush from the Book of Exodus. Scripture tells us that the bush burned but was not consumed, but I started to get the idea that it still wasn’t a lot of fun to be that bush.
All this reflection on God as fire led me to wonder insane and hellish it must feel out in Southern California right now, where people are fleeing real flames, not spiritual ones. All these apocalyptic natural disasters over the past years; are there more than usual or is it just that I’m getting older and the world smaller and I’m paying closer attention?
How are you, California readers? Please comment and tell us what’s going on for you. Are you evacuated or providing shelter for someone else who has evacuated? Do tell, and know that we’re praying for you here in PeaceBangland.
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Hi, PB
I am a very new reader here, but I thought I’d give up my lurkiness to tell you that I am here in the middle of San Diego with my Explorer packed just in case I get the reverse 9-1-1 call to leave. There are fires burning all around my area, but so far my neighborhood is safe. There have been many people evacuated in the area directly to the north, south, and east of me, but it seems that that was more prophylactic than actual danger, and many of those people have been allowed to return to their homes. I am so very lucky in that the only ill effects on me and my doggie personally are a horrible air quality and the need to stay in the house with the windows closed. My office is closed for the rest of the week. I am indeed fortunate.
Comparing this situation to the wildfires in October of 2003, which were horrifying and devastating, this time is much worse in terms of the size and number of fires, but the cooperation of the government agencies with each other, and the readiness of the people affected to just go when they’re told to go — rather than blow it off with bravado — has contributed to a model situation in terms of evacuating large numbers of people, livestock, and pets. I actually drove over to Qualcomm Stadium, where there are thousands of misplaced people and animals, to make a donation of water and supplies, and I was told that the response of the people here was so overwhelming that they had no more room to store supplies and could I donate money instead! I could and did. I am proud to be part of this generous population.
[Deb, thanks so much for de-lurking to give us this personal testimonial with so much good news in it amidst the tragedy. Please take care of yourself and your doggie and know that we are all praying for you and your communities. - PB]
Comment by Debbie — October 24, 2007 #
This is bigger than usual AND you may be paying closer attention. I don’t live there, but I have a brother-in-law in Escondido, so we have been paying even closer attention. (The Internet is a wonderful thing. It can tell you addresses that have received damage, among other things.)
His family (him, wife, mother-in-law, 3 dogs, and some birds) were evacuated (received a reverse 911 call) and stayed with their daughter in Huntington Beach. Their neighborhood turns out to be fine other than debris and soot. He snuck in and stayed in the house Monday night (dumb, dumb, dumb, if you watched any videos of the winds and flames). He says it has never felt so good to do yard work.
I am going to leave it to others to draw comparisons between government response here and after Katrina. I am also going to leave it to others to raise questions about trying to live somewhere that’s bone dry, previously populated mainly by chaparral and manzanita, and gets high winds every year. (These were worse than usual, though.) [Cathy, the same thoughts have been in my mind. I heard Prez Bush say on the radio that “we care,” and I said out loud, “Because you’re not poor, black people living in New Orleans.” — PB]
Comment by Cathy — October 25, 2007 #
You know, I do agree that this situation can be compared in many ways with the aftermath of Katrina, but your comment about “not poor black people living in New Orleans” really got me thinking. I have heard on our local news that there were more people evacuated here than in NO. I don’t know how true that is, but it’s just amazing that it went, to my eyes and ears at least, so smoothly. Is it that the government agencies, which are nothing more than local people too, learned from the past? Or is there just a crippling effect in some way that in a downtrodden area, which I admit in my ignorance I had no idea about — in NO at least — until the hurricane hit, even the “ones in charge” don’t even have the je ne se quois to jump to like they did here? Maybe it’s a little, or a lot, of both. There’s a huge military presence here in San Diego; did that make the difference? I just don’t know. Another observation: Firefighters are awesome human beings, and the kudos they’re getting from all the media is well-deserved, no doubt about that. But there are many, many people in law enforcement — and I’m not one of them, so I don’t have a bias to make this statement — who have played an equal part in managing this disaster who are also as heroic and selfless as the many stories we’re hearing about firefighters, and they indeed deserve the thanks and handshakes and hot meals too. They often seem to get lost in the chaos.
Thanks for this place, PeaceBang. I want to learn more about UU from visiting here. I am surrounded on every side of my life with “born-again” Christians and my heart, and my faith, whatever it is, just doesn’t fit in there. I’ve tried so hard, and I’m just not there.
Comment by Debbie — October 25, 2007 #
The Red Cross is sending us to southern California to help with the relief effort. I have to say that being able to physically go and help is a real blessing. Otherwise, I watch the TV and wring my hands and my blood pressure goes up and I cry. This way, we just go, do our Red Cross shtick, and it is a burden lifted.
For those of you who want to help, but can’t physically go, your monetary donation to relief groups allows someone else to make the choice to go. Your money blesses their work. It doesn’t have to be the Red Cross, although their secular values really resonate with me as a UU:
Humanity
Impartiality
Neutrality
Independence
Voluntary service
Unity
Universality
(Here’s a nice link that explains more:
http://swillinois.redcross.org/FundPrin.htm)
To give directly through a UU organization, here’s a link to the Pacific Southwest District’s relief fund:
http://tinyurl.com/ytfz3f
Comment by Louise — October 25, 2007 #
My wife and kids (10 and 8 years old) and I live in an area of San Diego that was evacuated on Monday morning. Even before the mandatory evacuation notice came, friends in a safer part of the city called to tell us that we could stay with them. We stayed with our friends (and another evacuated family) for two nights, and returned to our home on Wednesday evening to find that everything was OK.
Our church has been open all through the disaster, and when we got home we found a bunch of messages on the answering machine from people in our congregation asking if there was anything they could do to help.
About comparisons between Katrina and these fires… You should keep in mind that hurricanes and firestorms are very different kinds of disasters. Fires affect one neighborhood at a time, and you have a reasonable idea about which neighborhoods will be in danger next, so you can evacuate people beforehand in an orderly way. With a hurricane, the whole city is hit at once — and when it’s over, and the streets are flooded because the levees broke, it’s hard for anyone to move around at all.
Comment by Everett — October 26, 2007 #
(((I have heard on our local news that there were more people evacuated here than in NO. I don’t know how true that is, but it’s just amazing that it went, to my eyes and ears at least, so smoothly.)))
Part of the issue there is that New Orleans is surrounded on three sides by water and there’s only one highway out of town.
CC
Comment by Chalicechick — October 29, 2007 #
Reporting in: We’re fine. We never quite got to the evacuation stage here… but close. And plenty of people not far from us did… and had the winds shifted, we’d have been in flight too.
The vast bulk of the reason that San Diego Co’s evacuation worked as well as it did is that a vast fire is a very different creature. N.O. didn’t have much of anything anywhere that was safe and functioning and had water, power, and functioning stores. Here we had power, water, and plenty of people who weren’t in the way of disaster who were able to go out and help do whatever had to be done for others because their homes and families were fine. Hell, we couldn’t FIND a shelter that needed more hands for either of us to volunteer at, and we were able to make multiple trips to Costco to buy supplies for the shelters we knew of to support them.
It got to the point that the shelters were turning STUFF away, they had literally everything they needed–of every sort. That speaks very well of people and their reactions… but it also speaks of the utterly different situation. There weren’t Costcos operating in N.O. for those of us who could afford to spent the money to go buy anything and everything the folks in the Superdome needed.
Nor were those folks in a situation where they could flee. The city was cut off, and people with guns were actively NOT letting those who found their way to place they could have gone cross the bridges and leave (I speak from knowledge; I’ve a friend who was one of those people not allowed to leave… and she’s white, upper middle class and a professional…). Here when people got to feeling cramped or the air got bad, most of them could drive off to another shelter, or to Orange Co or L.A. where things were bad, but not as bad, and find a motel to stay at.
This disaster was horrific, and yet not as bad as the fires of 2003 (could have been better, but they did learn something…). But the underlying infrastructure of civilization was intact in much of the region. N.O. didn’t have that. Hell, the worst hit areas here got re-occupied within a week, and while there are problems… they’re being resolved (and complained about). Meanwhile there are swathes of N.O. where the federal response is still… awaited.
Relative wealth matters too. The areas affected aren’t places where many people depend on public transportation. Here, we drove away in SUVs loaded. And as I observed, we’ve been hit before–the Cedar fire in 2003 made people react very differently this time; we got up and got the hell out of the way, fast. N.O. was used to being missed by the bullet–and no one will react that way the next time. But then… we tended to be that way in 2003, in the face of fires.
Totally, utterly different disaster, in about every sense of the word. And the feds were late to the party here too; thank god we weren’t waiting on Bush telling FEMA to help us. Things were largely dealt with by local and state resources because we could (it would have been a hell of a lot better, too, if we’d had the full resources of the CA National Guard… at least half of that equipment is in Iraq…). But he did repeat N.O. in at least one way, which was imposing his ego and photo op onto the victims; making people wait hours to get to go home so that he could parade through the ruins of a major contributor’s home with the guy, showing his “care” for us all.
Comment by Patrick McLaughlin — November 3, 2007 #