"Save me, O God.
For the waters have come up to my neck.
I sink in the miry depths, where there is no foothold. I have come into the deep waters; the floods engulf
me. My eyes fail, looking for my God."
Psalm 69
The caravan meandered in slow
procession through the dirty streets barren of life. White vans accompanied by an SUV, and military
escort fore and aft, negotiated the New
Orleans neighborhoods of moldering grass and rotting
trees.
Houses and cars bore striped
tones testifying to receding water levels -- strata of the diminishing deluge
laying bare the enduring destruction underneath. Tropical temperatures and humidity created a
cauldron of advancing decay, with dwellings once fit for humans now a welcome
environment for lingering poison and burgeoning disease.
Arriving at the designated
address, armed service personnel secured the area and ensured the structure to
be entered was relatively stable and safe.
With impervious gowns and gloves, people resembling aliens stepped out
upon the hostile landscape, furtively advancing up the rickety steps of the
crooked porch.
Spray-painted markings at
various heights on the front wall bespoke the tale of previously heroic, yet fruitless
visits. However, this time, with
Katrina's flood completely faded away, educated eyes pierced through the
foreboding darkness, discerning anthropoid shapes amidst the mud-caked
furniture. Indeed, there were two
individuals inside awaiting this rescue turned recovery. Nameless citizens, their demise irrefutably
declared the manifest frailty of the levees that had once held them secure.
With professional competence
and remarkably compassionate expertise, the remains of the man and woman were
reverently secured and emplaced in their temporary vessels. Slowly carried from the house, the bodies
were brought to rest in the motorcade where the chaplain offered prayers far
too paltry for lives so courageously lived and reluctantly surrendered.
With no documents or IDs on
their person, the deceased couple lay in anonymous respite, until it was
observed that a mangled and twisted sign stood off to the left of the L-shaped
structure from whence they had come. Blistered
black paint against a beaten and bleached chipboard revealed that it was a
Baptist church, with attached parsonage, where these reposed faithful took
their last stand.
Surely as the waters had
risen and the earthly end drew near, petitions such as had never been offered
in that sanctified space must have shot skyward against the roar of the raging
torrent. While the initial onslaught may
have been endured, it was clear that the presumed pastor and his wife did not
survive the unrelenting flood. Yet,
within this unimaginable death they would be saved by the One they had followed
and proclaimed in life. Engulfed by
toxic slime, and untouchable with unprotected hands, these steadfast apostles were
long ago covered by the Cross of Jesus Christ.
Thus
it came to pass that a
pair of all too delicate disciples, solemnly removed from a destroyed
and
decaying house, found shelter in the eternal abode of God. The deep
mire had done its worst. The souls once faithfully preaching the
Gospel were silenced by a terrible storm.
Yet it was their Lord Who would ultimately have the final word.
| 