(Go to the New Orleans pictures)

Thursday, December 6, 2007

Phillip Gulley writes a Prayer for New Orleans  

     "When the Lord restored the fortunes of Zion, we were like those who dream.  Then our mouths were filled with laughter, and our tongues with shouts of joy; then they said among the nations, "The Lord has done great things for them."  --Psalm 126:1-2

     Lord, in a world where Caesar does so little, where children cry for bread and are given stones, bless these youth and those who labor with them to give real food and real hope to the bruised and battered of New Orleans.

     As you restored the fortunes of Zion, so restore this lovely city.  Replace her pain with promise, her nightmares with sweet and kindly dreams.  Turn her cries to laughter and give her a new song to sing.

     Lord, let all the world bear witness to the good you are doing here, even as politicians bicker and posture and pose.  Thank you for Lisa and Jim and the youth, whose mustard seed of faith will one day grow into a large tree, giving shade and comfort to your weary children.

     For all that you have done, for all that you are doing, for all that you will do, O Lord, we give you thanks.  AMEN.

NOTE:  Phillip Gulley, a Quaker pastor and author of the "Harmony" book series, wrote this as a prayer for our group and New Orleans.  He has co-written books with author and pastor Jim Mulholland who is leading our writing workshop.

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Wednesday, January 9, 2008

 New Orleans, who are you?

 by Wendy Simon

I am the one who was devastated by the monster

Katrina.

I am the one who wears lacy black wrought-iron

balconies in the French Quarter.

I am the one who tried desperately to hang onto my

people as they scrambled to the roofs of their flooded

homes.

I am the one who still knows how to enjoy andouille

sausage and okra in gumbo.

I am the one whose jazz musicians still play when they

can.

I am the one who has no shelter for many of my poor.

I am the one who had to send many of my people to

other cities because their homes were destroyed.

I am the one who cries at night for the loss of all that

was.

I am the one who is no longer in the headlines.

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Friday, January 11 2008

Thoughts on Writing

 by Tyler Domske

           Let me start off by saying something clearly:  I don’t journal.  Over the course of my life, I have purchased many journals.  Nearly all of  them are written in for a few pages, and then were abandoned.  I always think, “Why do I need to write things down?  I can just remember them.”  Every so often, though, I do pick up one of those old journals that I have written in and read what is in there.  I am always amazed at what I see.  It is like getting a letter from an old friend who I haven’t heard from in a long time.  The thing that surprises me most about these journals is that it is always a bit different than I remembered it. 

            Let me give you an example.  When I first started seminary three years ago, I wrote in a journal for one day.  One day.  My memory of those times is that I was a bit apprehensive about the big life change that I was making, but that I was overall optimistic and excited about what lay ahead of me.  When I read the entry in the journal, however, I was shocked to find something completely different.  The person who wrote this entry was struggle.  He was a person who was really confused and scared, someone who was really trying to follow where God was calling, but wasn’t sure if seminary was where that call was leading.  When I think of those days on my own, without reading this journal entry, I don’t remember how hard it truly was, and how much I struggled.  Three years later, I am certain that I am where God wants me to be.  I can’t imagine not being so.  But when I read that journal entry, I see a different person than I am today.

            Writing things down is like taking a picture.  It is a fixed moment that tells things as they are, as they feel in that particular moment.  Memories, on the other hand, are fluid.  They adjust and recalibrate based on the new information that we have learned.  Because of that, we sometimes forget what the true emotions of point in our lives were actually like. 

            We live in a culture where things have become instantly available.  Think of the last time that you got an actual letter in the mail.  Not an email, not a bill or junk mail, but a real letter, written to you.  We don’t write letters to people – we write emails.  We don’t need to read books any more.  We wait for the movie.  We don’t talk to people – we text.  Things are getting so fast that it’s easy to lose sight of what we are doing, and who we are in the midst of it all.

We need to write to remember.  Part of life is experiencing times of great joy, of great confusion, of great sadness, and of pure happiness.  Writing helps us to reflect.  Writing gives us time.  It provides a picture of who we were, and helps us to better understand who we are today.  As you write on this trip, try to really capture how you truly feel, what you are going through at that specific moment.  Think of it as a snapshot of your life right at that moment.  Write yourself a letter.  There is no better way to know where you are and where you need to know, then to remember where you’ve been. 

Write.  Remember.  Grow. 

I just got myself a new journal today.  I’ll be writing with you.

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Sunday, January 13, 2008

To the students going on the mission trip,

     Many of us teachers have traveled to different parts of the country and even different parts of the world.  When we are teaching we often try to bring those experiences to you in both our teaching and conversations.  However, being there and doing what we did cannot be adequately explained in any way, shape or form.  It is something that you have to do, and experience and see for yourself to really understand.  We can tell you about war torn countries and mass devastation but you really cannot fathom that concept unless you are there.  Some of our graduates who have left Wilmington and gone off to Afghanistan or Iraq have come back with stories to tell that are hard for the rest of us to even imagine.  Although we are not sending you off to battle, we are sending you off to a place that feels as though it has been through a battle.

     If you have gone on the previous mission trip, you have also seen theses places for yourself.  This time your "mission" is different.  This time you are not only rebuilding homes, but you are going there to rebuild hearts.  One of the things these people need the most is to be heard.  They need you to listen to them, laugh with them and cry with them.  They need to tell their stories to you and know that someone out there genuinely cares about them.  They feel abandoned by their government because they have not stepped in and rescued them in some cases or helped them to rebuild their lives in others.  If you look around, a lot of the rebuilding efforts have been done by churches like ours and and by individual people and groups of people who have gone down there lent them a hand.  In addition to building we are asking of you is to listen to these people, write down their experiences, feel their pain and then tell their stories to others so that we might experience their anguishes and they be better understood.  Be diligent in your work, write down every detail and do not leave out any important parts.  As they tell their stories over and over again, know that each time they tell it, the pain lessens a little bit for them and becomes easier to bear, especially if they lost loved ones.  Be the voices for them that spread their messages to others.  They have experienced some of the lowest times that they possibly could have in their entire lives, some of them have also experienced absolute miracles; some of them have literally seen the face of God in others through this whole experience.  Take some of those miracles home with you, let them rub off on you and change your lives.  As the Native Americans say, walk in the moccasins for a day and then let those things lead you on in a positive direction.  Even though some of them have reached their lowest point, they now have a new direction in which to travel.  Let this experience give you direction in which to travel.  Let this experience give you direction in your life, someday you may need this strength to survive a crisis in your own life and it will help give you the strength to carry on and live another day.

     At the end of a long day it is not only the hard work you do with your hands but also what you have accomplished with your heart and mind that stands for who you are.

     Know that, as your teachers, our hearts go with you.  We wish you a safe journey and we extend to you our love in this very important mission.

Sincerely,

Connie White, et al

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Lamentations for New Orleans

by Rev. Dr. Beverly Cushman

A Lamentation is a poem that deals with the bewilderment and distress felt by a person or a community in a

situation of disaster that cannot be changed, like death, the destruction of the temple in Jerusalem, or the

destruction of New Orleans.  Unlike a Lament there is no pleading for healing, for correction of an injustice,

and no sense of hope.

I dedicate these lamentations to the people of New Wilmington Presbyterian Church who are giving their time,

energy, and hope to the people of New Orleans.  I dedicate these lamentations to all who have gone to New Orleans

to rebuild it houses, to work in healing the brokenness, and to hear the stories that must be told again and again and

again...and again.  I dedicate these lamentations to the people of New Orleans who live in the FEMA trailers, who

struggle with insurance paperwork, and who cling to the memory of what was and the hope of what may be.

I pray that these lamentations may give voice to the people who love New Orleans.

Lamentation One

(#1 in a series of seven lamentations)

New Orleans, New Orleans, my city…my city.[1]

I have seen the breaking of your levees;

     Your ramparts are as streets of mud.

A voice is heard in on the riverbank,

      lamentation and bitter weeping.

NOLA is weeping for her children;

     she refuses to be comforted

     for her children are no more.[2]

New Orleans has gone into exile,

    She lives now among strangers

    but finds no resting place.

She asks for “turtle soup”

    and no one knows of it;

    for “crawfish étouffé.”

    They shake their heads.

New Orleans remembers,

    even in the days of her affliction and wandering.

    She remembers all the precious things

    that were hers in days of old.

“For these things I weep;  

   My eyes flow with tears

   For any comfort is far from me.

Who will revive my courage?

   My children are scattered;

     their homes are ruins

     there are no jobs to come back to.”

NOLA stretches out her hands,

   But there is no one to comfort her.

   Her fellow citizens have turned to other concerns.

   This city is a filthy remnant among them

She was “The City that Care Forgot,”

   her future was secure.

She cries out, “Lord, look at my affliction,

   for those who made promises have forgotten me.”

   Those who were left behind groan aloud

      neither bread nor water in the convention center;

     no shelter or safety in the Super Dome.

“Look, O Lord, see how worthless I have become.

  Look, my fellow Americans, all you who pass by,

  Look and see:  Is there any sorrow like my sorrow?”

            Governments have become her masters,

               sowing small change and promises amongst the mud and the ruins.

            There is no national will to save her from her suffering.       

               They no longer remember her destruction,

                      for other disasters have taken her place.

            Those who honored her have beheld her nakedness,

            She, herself, groans and turns away her face.

            How long, O Lord?

               Why have you forgotten us completely?

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Monday, January 14, 2008

                                        The Culling

                               by Vaughn Sherwood
   
                      Vast conspiracy nonprofits, gov't, power
                      working to control the digital world
                      to fake a 2nd coming of Christ
                      To cause mass calamity + misdirection
                      removing people and improving
                      their bottom line.
                      Power+Money=Evil
                      resistant tuberculosis, spark religious wars,
                      racial distrust, working towards
                      a final material society.

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A portion from a writing by Cinda Hickman

    In the Advent season of the Christian Church year, among all the familiar Bible verses and accounts, the passage from Isaiah used to describe the lineage of Jesse catches

 my attention:  " A green shoot will sprout from Jesse's stump; from his roots a budding branch."  Then I learn about the second mission trip to New Orleans that the

youth are undertaking in January.  I read the verse that is the group's theme, Psalm 74:23.  The Message states it this way:  "Remember your promises; the city is in

darkness, the countryside is violent.  Don't leave the victims to rot in the street:  make them a choir that sings your praises."

     A combination of thoughts as curious as the family's collection of Christmas tree ornaments glimmer together.  Green shoots emerging in a fire-eaten forest.  Growing

 numbers of volunteers to rebuild a chewed-up city and countryside.  A shoot from the stump of Jesse.  Victims who can be carefully tended into blooming once again,

 swelling with songs of praise to the source of all Life.  It is we, as people of God, those who care and give from home and those who travel to work on the scene,

 who are the signs of hope arising green amid damaged and blackened terrain wherever it is found, in the landscape of natural geography or in the human heart.

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         Lamentation Two

         by Rev. Dr. Beverly Cushman 

            When Noah opened the window of the ark he had made

               He saw the world covered in water.

               He heard the cries of those who sat on their roofs,

                  watching the waters swirl and rise around them.

                   A darkness came, so that you could not see.

                   A sudden terror overwhelms.

                   A flood of water covers you.[1]

                   And then the silence.

            Noah closed the window, and Noah wept.

            When Noah again opened the window,

               He saw the world covered with muddy waters.

               He watched as a woman’s body floated by him,

                   gently bumping the ark’s stout wall.

                   Who was this woman?  Who grieved her passing?

                   Could he have known her?

                   She floated by in final serenity;

                     Who would care that she died, and drifted?

                     Who was there left to identify her?

                     Who would bury her when the waters receded?

            Noah watched her until she drifted out of sight.

            Noah closed the window; and Noah wept.

            When Noah opened the window again,

               He saw the world covered in sepia mud.

               He saw cars pointed this way and that;

              remnants of lives once lived,

           symbols of jobs to go to,

                families with children on the go.

               He saw the hatchet hole in the attic

                     where his neighbor cried for help;

                     whose voice was silenced by the waters

                         in that deep and terrible night.

                He saw the toys of little children

                     bright colored handles and wheels

                     breaking through the strangling mud.

                           He saw five dead dogs tangled together,

                     an alligator covered in mud.

                     Even the predator of the swamps

                        could not endure this wall of water.

                He saw a sign painted on a window

                 “Help Us;” the muddy water line two feet above.

                He smelled the stench of death and sewage,

[1] Based on the lyrics of  “Where Have All the Flowers Gone,” words and music by Pete Seeger. 1956.

Tues, January 15, 2008

A Note from Lisa

The quote of the morning was Leroy, our construction guy, 'It's raining tools' he said.  In other words, all day long, people
have been coming to the church dropping off tools - all ages, all races.  Howard is downstairs speaking to someone now as

they drop stuff off.

Tim Sherwood is out with Leroy, his prayer for the week is simply to "lighten the load" - again, to help ease Leroy's burden

by offering the fullness of his electric and building skills for both houses in the area and the church. Of course, that is

how we all feel - Tim just gave expression to it.

We are 'listening with our eyes' as we absorb New Orleans

and her stories.  This morning we met Peter Badie who has played with Dizzy Gillespie and Aaron Neville.  He

showed us photos from his storm experience. 

That is a very brief update.  Goal for kids in the charter school today is to get a beginning, middle and end to the story. 

New Orleans is in the 'middle' of her story, we are just in the beginning of our understanding.
 
Saw a camellia growing today - so fragile and gorgeous.  Also, lots of starter magnolia trees planted - others were killed as salt

water destroyed them in the storm.
 
Love, peace, prayers and thanks.  Lisa

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New Orleans Sunday

Submitted by Joan Dawson

The van carrying supplies is already on its way to New Orleans.

I hadn’t thought about that part of the trip.

My alarm goes off at 6:30 a.m. to remind me to go into our church to see those

going to New Orleans off.  I wondered who would be going.

Arriving, I see only Lisa’s car and wonder where everyone is

But of course, it was too early for the youth to have gathered, it’s only 6:45

Lisa, Kim and I have a few moments together

The SHYG students arrive with backpacks and snacks

They are much quieter than I am use to seeing them at school

Could it be they are already aware that their lives are going to change?

A picture is taken, goodbyes are said with lots of hugs, and prayer

New Orleans you are helping to change us already

Now the vans have gone and I return home to get ready for church

I’m thankful to be a part of this community of faith that knows we are blessed to

be a blessings to others.

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Lamentation Three

by Rev. Dr. Beverly Cushman 

The roads to New Orleans mourn;

   so few come to the city now.

The crowds of the past are remembered ghosts.

Look even now, the city’s death;

    Listen to the sound of its silences;

    smell its smell of death and decay.

Come and see New Orleans now.

The avenues once boasted oak trees, pine trees tall,

and oak trees wide.

        They are no more, swept in the torrent.

             Now these streets bake, too much sun;

            no plants, no grass, no green;

        Vegetation dead for miles around,

                 The care clipped lawns sprout weeds and trash.

             nothing green, just baked, brown mud. 

Lakeview is a cemetery; Gentilly, a ghost land.

House after house stands empty,

     its story mapped in red paint:

    date of search; how many rescued,

        how many dead.

See the red and brown lines;

   proof of surging waters and killing winds.

No one to remove the red signs of searching,

   none to scrub the water line. 

“LASPCA dead dog.”  Whose loved pet was this?

    What kind of dog lived here?

    Who calls its name?

 Just a sign that marks its grave.

Block after block of vacant houses

    beyond all hope of their repair.

Block after block of people’s memories

    left behind in ruins there.

   Block after block of grief and sorrow,

     dreams dashed and no tomorrow.

Trash piled high on the neutral ground,

   baking, rotting, stinking, waiting. 

Some cars, stolen and abandoned;

  others swept away and crashed,

Looted and grafittied.

    Batt, [1] it was who abandoned them

       to the trash, and to ruins

      of  their home and neighborhood.

The wind whispers through the ruins;

   reminders yet of what there was,

   Just a ghost of what once was here.

Wondrous were the merchant mansions,

   filled with all our hopes and dreams.

   Colored spreads of Egyptian cotton,

     Aloes and cinnamon for aroma therapy,

   Golden rings for ears and fingers,

     Linen clothing, these we sought

 Now see what Lady Katrina wrought:

    Merchant mansions - piles of rubble.

      Their fine plazas demolished, gone.

    Where are the colored spreads from Egypt?

       Where now the rings of gold?

    Where the cosmetics, cd’s and books?

       All these coveted goods, now mold.

    The ruined wares fill engorged dumpsters.

      Where all was possible, there is nothing.

    All the mansions bulldozed into oblivion;

       one last remnant; one last stand.

    Maison Blanche remains, vomiting out its wares.

 [1] Jay Batt is a member of the New Orleans Council for District A, which represents Lakeview.

 Many Lakeview residents blame him for the lack of debris cleanup in the area.

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Reflections from New Orleans

Yesterday. Monday, January 14, 2008 produced a collage of activities and ideas.  Although we have a number of goals set, working on some houses, authoring  some children's books, this trip is not the traditional mission trip which many of our teens have previously experienced in which there is one house which will be worked on throughout the week.  Our men with some of our boys worked on two houses either laying out and marking electrical wiring or doing some preliminary framing work.  A larger group went to Wilson Charter School to begin working with 3 fourth grade classes and 1 fifth grade classes on Kids Are Authors books.  We arrived in time to share an extremely energetic lunch period in the cafeteria.  The children at the school were eager to talk about their lives and to hear about who we are.  Those of us who had not previously visited New Orleans as well as others who simply wanted to see the city again went on a tour with Cliff Nunn, pastor of First Presbyterian Church.  He pointed out changes that have occurred even since our group visited in June.  Particularly, he showed us a lock and pump system which has be built between each of the city's canals and the Lake.  We saw and stopped at the remnants of Brad Pitt's pink houses.  They have been placed in an area which is now leveled but which once had no empty lots.  The day wrapped up with sloppy joes and a return of the cajun dancing man.  We ended the day writing.

 

The writing prompt for the evening was as follows:
      When the rainbow is in the clouds, I will see it and remember the everlasting covenant

between God and every living creature of all flesh that is on earth.    Genesis 9:16     

The assignment was to reflect on what a rainbow means to us or on what the church's role in New Orleans is.

Delilah wrote the following:

                                                Rainbow

What a rainbow means to me is that everything is going to be ok.

The Rainbow

 By Howard Moss

The water pours down from the heavens,

saturating all of the earth,

drenching the eagles and ravens

and all life that His breath had gave birth.

When through the droplets God beaconed,

after judgment ravaged willow and pine,

love for creation not weakened,

He parted the clouds with sunshine.

God looked down on earth with compassion,

providing branch for the tiring dove,

blessing the world with mercy and passion,

shown with brilliance of prism, His Love.

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Wed, January 15, 2008

       Submitted by Linda Johnston

PEARLS OF WISDOM

FOR THE PEOPLE OF

NEW ORLEANS and NEW WILMINGTON.

(A pearl is a gem or precious stone.  Wisdom is understanding

what is true, right or lasting.  Pearls of Wisdom are gems

or sayings of true or memorable quality.)  

*IN THE BEGINNING GOD…

*Make yourself a light!

*Call on God but row away from the rocks. (Indian Proverb)

*Don’t count the days…make the days count.

*Trust in the Lord with all your heart. (Proverbs)

*To the world you might be one person,

but to one person you might be the world.

*Friendship isn’t a big thing – it’s a million little things.

*God’s answers are wiser than our prayers.

*Life is like an onion:  you peel off one layer at a time

          and sometimes…you weep.

*Do you see difficulties in every opportunity or

          opportunities in every difficulty?

*There is a season for everything. (Ecclesiastes)

*There is something of yourself that you leave

 at every meeting with another.(Mr. Rogers)

*Some people are in your life for a reason, some for a season,

some for a lifetime. (Lisa’s Mom)

*Eat a live toad in the morning and

nothing worse will happen to you for the rest of day!

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Lamentation Four

by Rev. Dr. Beverly Cushman

            Hear this word that the Lord has spoken against you, O President.

            Hear and testify against the governor of Louisiana, and the Mayor too.

            On that day that I will punish you for your failures

                   to uphold the moral covenant of your election.

                   I will tear you from your houses of power.

            From your wealth I will demand payment,

                   for each life lost, for each home destroyed

                        For the loss of the city, it’s culture, and its soul.

                   For your lack of political courage, I will demand retribution.

                   For each opportunity to act, lost in blame and political tricks.

            I will bring the faces of the dead before you in your dreams;

                   I will haunt your days with the stories of those who grieve;

                   those who live in exile; those who despair in our streets.

            Hear this word, you who hold our country in your hands.

                Where were you when the winds rose, and the waves broke the levees?

                Where were you when those who could not escape

                    were dying on our streets?

            You raised campaign funds, as the winds unraveled the roofs of New Orleans.

               The waters rose ten feet and more as your vice-president vacationed.

            When at last you stood in Jackson Square, you made us promises:

               “There is no way to imagine America without New Orleans,

                    and this great city will rise again.”[1]

            You, O President, despised your covenant with New Orleans.  

            Hear this word, you cows of Prarie Chapel Ranch,[1]

               you who rest at peace in Crawford, Texas.

               Your life is valued more than all the people of New Orleans,

                   Yea, more than many people.[2]  

            Your master tarried among his cattle; seeking end of summer rest.

                He who was chosen to guard our people, our city, our lives,

                He sat in comfort in his cushy, camel-colored couch,[3] 

                   Watching waters waste away the places of our hearts.

            Hear this word, you who sit in the safety of the tower in Baton Rouge.

               You promised us that all was prepared.

                   You prayed that the impact would be softened.

                   Confident in human works, you did not give us time to leave,

                       time to move out of Katrina’s wrath.

                You pondered the president’s offer

                        to “federalize” the Louisiana National Guard.

                You feared the loss of control,

                        the forfeit of the state’s troops to the president’s whim.

                 You pondered, and the waters rose higher;

                 You pondered, and people died.

              Do you not hear the cries

                   Of those who broke through attic walls,

                        seeking safety on collapsing roofs?

                   Of those who were left to die, to float in the stinking, putrid waters?

                   Of those who waited in heat and terror in the ruins of the Super Dome?

           Where were the buses to carry the poor to a safe place?

                   They waited for days in heat and rain.

                   Where was the food?  Where the water?

            Where were those charged with bringing order to our chaos,

                    law to the anarchy of our streets?

            Snipers stand on hospital roofs, shooting anything that moves.

                   The guns in their hands provide the only order; the order of fear.

                        Patients die of thirst and hunger; life-giving machines, silenced and mute.

            In the street the sword bereaves;

                    in the house it is like death.[1]

            Looting and violence; rape and assault; we are afraid in the ruins we called home.

                               Drugs and murder, these are our neighbors, we who have dared to stay.

            Where was the government we paid our taxes for?

            Where were you when the waters raged and the winds ravaged?  

            Where were you, when we were drowning?

            Where were you, when we died?

            Hear this word, O bureaucrats, for you have failed your covenant call.

                        Have you not heard?  Has it not been told you?  

                        Has it not been said from the beginning?

                        Have you not understood from the foundation of the levees?

             They will not hold![1]   

            We have spoken this word and have cried out to you: save us!

                  We have seen our wetlands dredged and developed.

                  We have cried out when funding for our channels was cut, and cut again.

             But you would not hear our plea, we are so little.

             The Army of Engineers cannot rebuild all that was lost. 

                 Not even sandbags of 7,000 pounds can stop the power of the storm.

            You have built again, what did not hold.

            Your purses will not open for us, to build for safety here.

                 There are wars to be fought, and campaigns to be won.

            And New Orleans trembles before the winds and waves. 

            Fallen no more to rise is Lady NOLA

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     Lamentation Five

      by Beverly Cushman 

            By the waters of the “Big Muddy” Mississippi[1]

                  there we sit on the Riverwalk and weep;

                  remembering the days of the “City that Care Forgot.”

            In our places of exile, we finger our horns.

                  We play snippets of the songs we once sang.

            Strangers surround us in Houston and Baton Rouge,

                    “Play us the jazz of New Orleans,”  they say

                   They ask us for jazz, for music of joy

                        when all we can feel are the blues.

         How can we play our jazz in Houston

            Where the air is dry, and the beer is ‘lite’?

                 How can we play the tunes of Preservation Hall

                      When there is only one soul here who knows the tune?

                    If I forget you, my New Orleans,

              Let my right hand wither!

                 Let my tongue cleave to the roof of my mouth!

                   If I do not remember you, my city,

                    If I no longer weep the tears of remembrance.

            Remember, O Lord, against the governments

                who vacationed as New Orleans drowned.

                           How they played at their ranches, and pointed fingers of blame.

                         O mayors and governors, federal officials and presidents,

                    you devastators!

                  Blessed are they who will call you to account

               for your neglect, for your fear, for your heartlessness.

                   Blessed are they who pull you from power

                             and consign your names to the pit of infamy.

[1] Based on Psalm 137.

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***The following article is about a man who our group met. He now lives in one of the Rainbow houses.***

After Katrina, the Jazzman Plays On

By Anne Hull

Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, January 30, 2006; Page A02

NEW ORLEANS -- Peter Badie is in the kitchen, rummaging around in a drawer for a spoon. This isn't his kitchen. His kitchen was filled with 10 feet of water during Hurricane Katrina and likely awaits the wrecking ball. The 80-year-old jazz musician is homeless and temporarily living in a spare bedroom of a Creole cottage here in the Faubourg Marigny section of town. This is Sue Hall's kitchen.

"Sue Hall, where is that big pan?" Badie calls out.

"Peter, it's where you left it," says the voice from the other room.

Horns and clarinets drift from speakers above. Badie catches sight of his black sunglasses on the counter. He snatches them up and slips them into his shirt pocket, mindful of being a neat houseguest. "Sue Hall, I've got some fish cakes out here."

The hurricane has forced all sorts of unexpected arrangements, and Badie and Hall are just one unlikely Odd Couple living in the aftermath. Badie is an accomplished acoustic bass player who has toured with Lionel Hampton. Hall booked bands at the Palm Court Jazz Cafe. When she heard that Badie lost his home in the Lower Ninth Ward, she offered him a place to stay.

Hall has red hair and pearly skin. She was born in Kankakee, Ill. Chili pepper lights hang in her kitchen; Southern folk art and pink flamingos abound. In the middle of this bright whimsy is Badie, an austere modern jazzman, as cool as midnight itself, dealing with his homelessness, anger and unsure future.

This is life in New Orleans now: tenuous, with strange forgings and new beginnings. No one is saying how long the arrangement will last.

Badie -- known as "Chuck" -- has a salt-and-pepper soul patch. He is a widower and devout Catholic. His routine is simple. He rises mid-morning, says his prayers and then emerges from his borrowed room and makes a pot of grits. He is immensely proud, almost to the point of defiance. He recently returned a $4,000 check that the musicians union sent him by mistake.

At Hall's kitchen table, he reads the New Orleans Times-Picayune from cover to cover. "They say New Orleans will be back," Badie says. "Not for me it won't. I'm 80 years old."

Badie was born in 1925 in the Black Pearl section of Uptown in New Orleans. His father was a jazz saxophonist with the Eureka and Olympia brass bands. Badie didn't pick up music until he got out of the Navy in 1945 and used the GI Bill to enroll at the Grunewald School of Music in New Orleans, a beacon of progressivism in a city cleaved by race. "Whites were on the first floor and blacks were on the second floor; to me, that's integrated," Badie says.

Zoot Sims, Dizzy Gillespie -- Badie played with the best of them. Along with other black musicians, he helped found the A.F.O. (All For One) record label in 1961. But musicians were paid so little that Badie worked as a lunch waiter at the Royal Sonesta Hotel in the French Quarter for 15 years, making $500 a week, five times what he earned playing music.

Before the hurricane, he had a standing gig at the Palm Court, and he rolled up in style: punctual, a pressed shirt and a 1979 black Cadillac roomy enough to carry his bass in the back seat. He lived alone at his house on North Johnson Street. Other musicians die in rental apartments, but Badie had his house.

Now he sits in Hall's kitchen, holding a letter from his homeowner's insurance company, typed with the words "No Compensation."

"Not one quarter," he says, smoldering.

Five months after the storm, Badie still drives to his house every day and stares at it. The mysteries of his losses plague him. "I had six suits," he says. "I'm talking about suits. Not that mix-'n'-match jive. Six suits. Now, where did they go?"

He was wise enough to store his two basses on the second floor of the Palm Court before the storm, saving them from ruin. He momentarily forgets his troubles when describing his 1946 Epiphone. "It's got a sound, baby, you can hear around the corner," he says. "People said, 'Chuck, don't ever sell it.' Cats would snap it up in a second. I did a lot of records with that." "The Man I Love," "A Change Is Gonna Come." One of the basses is stretched out across Hall's living room. Who knows where it will finally rest. Badie has been looking into the Habitat for Humanity "musicians' village" that singer Harry Connick Jr. and saxophone player Branford Marsalis are trying to create for Louisiana musicians left homeless by the storm.

For now, this pink cottage is home. Badie shows his appreciation by cooking: breaded pork chops, cabbage, neck bones, turnips and carrots, and oyster dressing. "Oyster dressing?" Badie says. "Oh, that will kick you. See, I re-boil them crawfish heads and get that stock ."

The phone rings again, and Hall comes into the kitchen. She's been trying to find a trombonist for a gig. The hurricane scattered New Orleans jazz musicians across the country; two-thirds have still not returned. "I must have called 10 trombone players," Hall says.

Badie frets over what to wear to the gig. His suits are gone. He goes into his bedroom to make a call about finding a new white shirt.

Hall drops her voice and whispers, "He's old school, the last of a generation. A man of integrity."

When Badie takes his place on stage at the Palm Court the next night, he reveals nothing of his troubles. The club owner introduces the musicians. "Mr. Chuck Badie has lost his home," she tells the crowd. Badie's eyes are hidden behind his dark shades. Someone counts off a beat, and the band sets off, with Badie plucking fiercely to the end.

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Excerpts from a Letter to the New Orleans Mission Team

by Don and Fran Pratt

As you set out on your journey of mercy to the victims of Hurricane Katrina, we want to assure you of our prayers for the success of your mission, and also your protection.  In light of that, we feel that our words to you might center upon the need of the people for healing, in spirit, soul and body.

Hosea 4:6 says, "My people are destroyed from lack of knowledge." Oh, this is so true! Many are destroyed because they don't know.  You are ambassadors of the Lord Jesus Christ in a dark place, dear friends.  Let the light of Christ shine from you, and bring healing and restoration to a lost and dying people.

NOTE:  Please read and copy their entire letter which is available on the piano in the Ligo Room.

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Letter to the Group

from Pam Mansell

New Orleans Like Nowhere Else

by Howard Moss 

Half-drowned,

soggy, dripping like a ragdoll

left floating in a bucket

of murky tepid water,

the city strains

to keep its head above water.

Like a dog,

just in from a long walk in the rain,

New Orleans shakes itself

and smiles.

Contractors and handymen

course across town

from one repair project to another.

Beauty shops reopen in dingy garages.

Vendors sell their wares from carts and trunks.

Restaurants and clubs

provide a glimpse of normalcy

in the upside-down life

called recovery.

Second lines sashay

with their funky brass

pronouncing their joie de vivre

with every pulsing step.

Even while struggling to live,

New Orleans reverberates

life to the fullest.

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Lamentation Seven

by Beverly Cushman

            Remember, O Lord, your people here.

                  Our inheritance, our future is unknown.

            We struggle to build again with little help

             There is work here, if we could just live

                  in our houses, not these trailers parked in lots.

                  Our eyes failed, ever watching

            vainly for help;

      We watched eagerly

            for a nation that could not save.[1]

          We have despaired of being heard,

             of promises slow and short.

                 And in our distress we have cried to the Lord,

           and waited for His redress.

            Yes! There are those who have heard our cry,

                  There are those who have not forgotten us.

            O listen to our stories; listen and hear our tales,

        for we must speak our terror;

      we must tell our trials.

        For if we do not speak and tell

          the tribulations of these years

               then we and they will be forgotten;

              New Orleans will cease to be.

              She lives now in our memories

                and in our determined stand.

                 This is our home, New Orleans.

                   You bring us hope in hand.

            You come from churches far and wide

                  where God’s word of compassion is heard.

                 Congregations great and small,

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