In the middle of the devastating news coming from south Texas this week, there’s strangely been an undercurrent of goodness. An entire city virtually disappeared under water, but on the news we see nobility on a grand scale. it’s not the usual parade of human beings at their worst.
Ever since Harvey made first landfall, I have been glued to the news. I can’t stop watching the instant jumping-into-action of ordinary people who survey what they have… expertise, a bass boat, a trailer… and jump on the highway, headed for Houston like the US cavalry.
Houston Jesuit students rescued dozens of families over the weekend
Long line of civilians hauling fishing boats to Houston for rescues, in what is being called “The Texas Dunkirk”
Brewery staff loading stranded residents on to heavy brewery truck
I somehow think God must feel like Thomas Edison when his light bulb finally worked after a thousand tries.
The molten core of the theology of the body is the reality that we are created to be gifts to others. It applies most profoundly to husband and wife, but we are all meant to make a full gift of ourselves to others, through our bodies.
It’s what we’re built for, but it’s HARD. And we don’t often see it.
The news this week could have been sub-titled, “The Theology of the Body Gets Real.” On any news channel, we saw the gifts: paddling out in canoes to rescue a family and their dog; driving motorhomes to Houston to offer one family a place to shelter; first responders working around the clock, until they physically drop from exhaustion.
WHNT Houston
Harvey has proved we can do it. And this massive, spontaneous response has proved that we want to do it. Are you not gripped by a burning desire to embark on the great adventure of helping people who won’t find fault with our politics, color or religion, people with whom a spiritual bond is wrought by the sheer purity of great need?
We all send what money we can, and God only knows how badly that is needed… but did you not, even further, long to DO something? That is the body speaking. Even through floodwaters with escaped alligators, downed power lines, glass shards, and spilled chemicals, people still go, because we are made for greatness, not for ease.
Orange County Register
It’s not just families on rooftops and stranded cars who have been rescued this week. Maybe, by seeing who we really are, we’ve saved ourselves from the shrunken-ness that has lately threatened to obliterate our character.
Houston Chronicle
Join the crowd! Make a gift of yourself through aid to disaster relief orgs with sterling reputations:
Catholic Charities Galveston-Houston
Knights of Columbus Texas Council
Feature photo Mark Mulligan / Houston Chronicle