Our worship just ended.... and we broke into small groups and spoke to one another about what we have seen here in New Orleans... Driving through the Ninth Ward, it is hard to imagine what the people here had to endure and have continued to endure. It is so disappointing to see how humanity continues to choose power as manipulative power over power as agent of mutual, transformative change.... Then too-- I ask myself: Well, perhaps this is all illusion, is all maya, too?! The people of New Orleans have a voice. They have a story, and we all have had the opportunity to hear just a little piece of it.... The message has been heard... and for me, I continue to hear something like this: In the talk of re-building, there is the talk of "leaving a little ecological foot-print"... but what this continues to mean is: pushing the poor people out.... Katrina revealed the presence of systemic oppression in our country..... Have we forgotten this reality-- or do we too, as Mary Oliver writes, fallen for "power, for things..." Being here in New Orleans, I cannot help but think of American culture.... I am American, and yet it has been a difficult thing to embrace at times. I have felt more like a New Yorker than an American, because when I look at the world around me, I think: I feel with them... With them... and with them too.... I sense so deeply my interconnectedness with other cultures.... Has our own country forgotten this? And then too, not to leave myself blameless, how have I forgotten? How does culture, in its fast-paced, methodical way convinced me that working towards the revealing and living out of this interconnectedness is not the most pressing task of the day-- not the latest model of automobile, technology, or latte (as a caffeine-fiend, I am hitting close to home)... And yet, how has Katrina moved us? Are we moved? Will we move? And then too-- what effects change? How does one live out our interconnectedness? I think about this in our Interfaith context as a group-- In what way, am I living out of my Christian-ness and somehow not open to the presence of other religious culture around me..... Is it culture that is the problem.... or need I... or rather... must we struggle for greater mindfulness-- a mindfulness that would enable me to put down my own agenda... equally hard... to listen and be touched by another's? New Orleans, you have touched mine... You have touched us all..................