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.

The Drum Major Instinct

“I know a man — and I just want to talk about him a minute, and maybe you will discover who I'm talking about as I go down the way because he was a great one. And he just went about serving. He was born in an obscure village, the child of a poor peasant woman. And then he grew up in still another obscure village, where he worked as a carpenter until he was thirty years old. Then for three years, he just got on his feet, and he was an itinerant preacher. And he went about doing somethings. He didn't have much. He never wrote a book. He never held an office. He never had a family. He never owned a house. He never went to college. He never visited a big city. He never went two hundred miles from where he was born. He did none of the usual things that the world would associate with greatness. He had no credentials but himself.

“He was only thirty-three when the tide of public opinion turned against him. They called him a rabble-rouser. They called him a troublemaker. They said he was an agitator. He practiced civil disobedience; he broke injunctions. And so he was turned over to his enemies and went through the mockery of a trial. And the irony of it all is that his friends turned him over to them. One of his closest friends denied him. Another of his friends turned him over to his enemies. And while he was dying, the people who killed him gambled for his clothing, the only possession that he had in the world. When he was dead he was buried in a borrowed tomb, through the pity of a friend.

“Nineteen centuries have come and gone and today he stands as the most influential figure that ever entered human history. All of the armies that ever marched, all the navies that ever sailed, all the parliaments that ever sat, and all the kings that ever reigned put together have not affected the life of man on this earth as much as that one solitary life. His name may be a familiar one. But today I can hear them talking about him. Every now and then somebody says, "He's King of Kings." And again I can hear somebody saying, "He's Lord of Lords." Somewhere else I can hear somebody saying, "In Christ there is no East nor West." And then they go on and talk about, "In Him there's no North and South, but one great Fellowship of Love throughout the whole wide world." He didn't have anything. He just went around serving and doing good.

“This morning, you can be on his right hand and his left hand if you serve. It's the only way in.

“Every now and then I guess we all think realistically about that day when we will be victimized with what is life's final common denominator — that something we call death. We all think about it. And every now and then I think about my own death, and I think about my own funeral. And I don't think of it in a morbid sense. Every now and then I ask myself, "What is it that I would want said?" And I leave the wordto you this morning.

“If any of you are around when I have to meet my day, I don't want a long funeral. And if you get somebody to deliver the eulogy, tell them not to talk too long. Every now and then I wonder what I want them to say. Tell them not to mention that I have a Nobel Peace Prize, that isn't important. Tell them not to mention that I have three or four hundred other awards, that's not important. Tell him not to mention where I went to school.

“I'd like somebody to mention that day, that Martin Luther King, Jr., tried to give his life serving others. I'd like for somebody to say that day, that Martin Luther King, Jr.,tried to love somebody. I want you to say that day, that I tried to be right on the war question. I want you to be able to say that day that I did try to feed the hungry. I want you to be able to say that day that I did try in my life to clothe those who were naked. I want you to say, on that day, that I did try, in my life, to visit those who were in prison. I want you to say that I tried to love and serve humanity.

“Yes, if you want to say that I was a drum major, say that I was a drum major for justice; say that I was a drum major for peace; I was a drum major for righteousness. And all of the other shallow things will not matter. I won't have any money to leave behind. I won't have the fine and luxurious things of life to leave behind. But I just want to leave a committed life behind. And that's all I want to say.

If I can help somebody as I pass along,

If I can cheer somebody with a word or song,

If I can show somebody he's traveling wrong,

Then my living will not be in vain.

If I can do my duty as a Christian ought,

If I can bring salvation to a world once wrought,

If I can spread the message as the master taught,

Then my living will not be in vain.

Yes, Jesus, I want to be on your right or your left side, not for any selfish reason. I want to be on your right or your left side, not in terms of some political kingdom or ambition. But I just want to be there in love and in justice and in truth and in commitment to others, so that we can make of this old world a new world.

- Rev Martin Luther King, Jr.

1968