Our Refuge

Today, I took a walk through the Superdome and I felt the pain. You see, I'm in New Orleans, Louisiana as part of the team that will put on the ELCA National Youth Gathering — an event for more than 33,000 Lutheran high school students and their chaperones that occurs once every four years. And this year, as in 2009, it is being held in the Mercedes-Benz Superdome.

So, today, during the course of my duties (I was writing something to accompany a performance piece), I left our busy, noisy little office to breathe and collect my thoughts. I headed up to the second bowl, which was largely deserted. Just me and the empty seats. Rows and rows.

The phrase "what if these walls could talk" popped into my head. If I was very still, I could almost hear the walls weep. Their story was one of desperation; of dehydration; of starvation. It was a place where thousands of people waited for rescue or death.

During Hurricane Katrina, over 20,000 people took refuge inside the stadium. They waited out the storm here, on these cement floors and in these folding chairs. For six days, they waited, while babies ran fevers, trash and toilets backed up, lights went dark and the only running water poured through holes in the ceiling and trickled up through elevator shafts. It was hell at its most tangible.

When the last bus of refugees rolled out, the concourse where I stood was overflowing with more than a foot of garbage and human waste. Imagine the horror of it all. These walls are still crying, still bleeding for the poor of New Orleans.

In several Psalms, God is likened to a shelter. "The Lord is a refuge for the oppressed, a stronghold in times of trouble," the psalmist says in one. In another, the people of Israel call out to God, "Turn your ear to me, come quickly to my rescue; be my rock of refuge, a strong fortress to save me." In the storm, God is the shelter. Isaiah proclaims that the Lord has "been a refuge for the poor, a refuge for the needy in their distress, a shelter from the storm, and a shade from the heat." God does not abandon those in need. He was there, in the Superdome, wiping sweat off his brow with the people of New Orleans; he suffered through their nightmare.


It is easy to forget the story behind the flashy exterior, but if you stop to feel the divine presence in the Dome, it is undeniable. If those walls could talk... We are called to hear the story — to feel the pain and love the scars.


I hope my brothers and sisters who come to this event understand that the Spirit is at work in this place. Jesus was crucified in the Superdome just as surely as he was at Calvary. And God provided a refuge from the storm.


If this is not a sacred place, then I don't know what is.

- Jonny Eberle, Dome Creative Team Member. I live in Flagstaff, AZ and blog here and at www.jweberle.com/blog.