Ash Wednesday

Today Lent begins, the season when Christians look inward and turn away from the pleasures of the world, examine their values and their lives, and await the joy of Easter. In New Orleans and other hurricane struck cities of the South, tens of thousands of people are still in atonement, their lives torn asunder by last year's weather cycle. It is a terrible tragedy that so many are still adrift six months after the fact. Radio and television stories have capitalized on the arrival of Mardis Gras, a South Coast ritual that is iconically American. They have talked about the implications of progress or the lack of progress in six months. I find myself thinking in the other direction. We are only three months from the beginning of this year's hurricane season. We have thousands who have not yet recovered from the trials of '05. And we are just a snap of the fingers away from whatever '06 brings. If this season is as tempestuous as last, it may be that the Gulf Coast will not survive. This might be worse than we know. Not in a blinding, breath stopping tidal wave but in the repetitive rush and ebb of successive waves that erode the underpinnings of modern life there. I worry at that. I pray for those who are already suffering and at risk.