Why does it take a disaster to get us to pay attention to the realities of poverty and powerlessness?

Such searing images on our TV screens in the wake of Hurricane Katrina:  An elderly woman, sitting outside in sweltering tropical heat for the third straight day with no food or water, repeatedly and apparently hopelessly daubing her face with a red cloth.  A little boy whose face seems permanently fixed in that expression that comes just before bursting into tears.  A young mother, clutching a box containing a bottle of water and a package of emergency rations, sobbing and wailing, “I just want to go home.  I just want to go home.  I don’t want to eat this stuff, I want to go home and eat my own food.”

So many images of powerless people—some made suddenly powerless by the ferocity of the storm and its aftermath, but many (the poor), whose chronic powerlessness is only now being revealed to the eyes of the world by this disaster.

What does it mean to have power?  I would suggest that it means, at the most basic level, to have the capacity to act and by acting to have an impact on and shape one’s life circumstances.

When human beings are hit by 145-mile-an-hour winds or a 28-foot wall of water, they have no power.  They cannot act upon and shape their circumstances; they are simply swept away, tossed about, overwhelmed.

When human beings lack money, skills, connections, and resources, they also have no power.  What good is an evacuation order with no means to evacuate?

The horrifying images of desperate storm victims trapped by flood water with no food, no drink, no sanitary facilities, and no way out are an icon that those of us who do have power need to contemplate and not flinch from.

These images show us, not just the effects of a catastrophic storm, but the effects of our own ability to make peace with ongoing injustice.

This world we share, gift of God and reflecting the image of its creator, is a world of incredible abundance.  There is, quite simply, enough and more than enough to go around of all the things human beings need.

If we were willing, we could, as a world community, easily feed, clothe, shelter, provide health care for, educate, and employ everybody.  When are we going to do it?

By all means, send what money and aid you can to Katrina’s victims.  But while you’re at it, look around you at your own community.  Where is the poverty, desperation, and powerlessness in your own back yard?  And what could you be doing about it?

Our God is a god of justice.  We cannot find peace with God while we are still making peace with so much injustice.