Women of Katrina say: a time to mourn, a time to cease mourning

Judith Martin -  The
song, "Turn, turn, turn," excerpted from the Bible the wisdom that says there is a time
for everything, for birth, for death and for everything under heaven,
which means a time to move on.

 The
anniversary of Hurricane Katrina of 2005 will be here soon.  Should
churches in southeast Louisiana go all out with memorial services on
Sunday, August 29, in remembrance of the tragedies?

Those are the questions considered by those who suffered through the floods and the pain of those tragedies.


The ladies of one particular congregation, on the south shore of Lake
Pontchartrain in New Orleans, in a very wealthy and upscale neighborhood
just behind some newly-reinforced levees just off Lakeshore Drive,
think it is time to move on with lives, not to forget but to look
forward, to recognize the best that is to come.


The pastor, on the other hand,  has plans for a service that will go
all out on personal accounts of how the Katrina experience has changed
the lives of individuals, and the singing of hymns like "Amazing Grace"
can be depressing in circumstances which cause people to reflect on the
tragedies and not the spark of hope that leads the heart to victory in
the worst of circumstances.

A song like "I Saw the Light" by Hank Williams, Sr. would tell the story more.


The substitute pianist for the service commemorating Katrina is a
Katrina survivor herself. On August 29, as night was falling, as she and
her 95-year-old mother were trying to climb the hall steps in their
house to get to the dryness of the attic, the mother suffered a stroke
and died in the young woman's arms.

On
August 30, 2005, leaving her mother's body wrapped around with a towel
that was tethered to a clothes hook in the bathroom, the young woman had
to swim for her life in the flooded street in front of her house,
through three whirlpools and undertow that nearly did pull her under.


The young woman and the regular pianist for the church, and a couple of
the other ladies also, would rather the church service focus on looking
towards the future.   They asked the pastor to continue with a normal
service, and in the pastoral prayer to acknowledge the losses of the
past, but to ask for guidance and strength for everyone to go forward to

rebuild their lives in the future.

It is the future New Orleans seeks, a brighter day, the gift of the morrow.

What the women of the storm telling the pastor is that there is a time to mourn, and a time to cease mourning and move on.

Like a prayer we whisper: the time to cease mourning has come.

Amen

Note by Editor   Authenticity in the voice of this article is made by someone who suffered more than most and gives this good advice on the anniversary of Hurricane Katrina that people who linger in their hurts may never be able to realize their best life might be tomorrow.