As I sit here alone in my room, aware of Hurrican Rita’s bearing down on Galveston, Texas, I don’t feel alone, nor am I so. For we are one nation tonight, tracing the storm’s path, threatening lives and property.

Of course, the report of the 24 elderly people who perished in the bus fire while they were being evacuated to safety, as my Baptist friend would say, “has placed a scald upon our hearts,” a pain that will not soon be quieted. Now and again, we’ll find the courage to look at the scene in our imaginations -- the horror, anguish, and helplessness in those elderly eyes. Then, we turn away, unable to remain longer before the charred remains, encased in the steel skeleton of a common coffin, a bus as charred as its precious cargo.

Yesterday, I attended Mass, partly just to pray, with words, without words, it mattered not. It was good just to be there with our priest, and surrounded by friends I knew and unknown strangers, united in anxious waiting for the welfare of our brothers and sisters, whom we have never met, but their hour of need has made them kin to all.

The first lesson from the beginning of the Book of the Prophet Haggai 1:1-8, seemed to hold special meaning:

Now thus says the Lord of hosts:
Consider your ways!
You have sown much, but have brought in little.
You have eaten, but have not been satisfied;
You have drunk, but have not been exhilarated;
have clothed yourselves, but not been warmed;
And whoever earned wages earned them for a bag with holes in it.
Thus says the Lord of hosts:

Consider your ways!
Go up into the hill country;
bring timber, and build the house.
That I may take pleasure in it
and receive my glory, says the Lord.  

As we read over this passage, centuries old, it seems an easy fit for today’s paper, coming at a time when nothing can satisfy us, as we take a long, hard look at the poverty revealed by Hurricane Katrina. Often, in our shame, we hear the question: “How can we repair our image before the world?” We do so want to polish up the outside of the cup, make everything spotless to reflect a proud, dignified, self-satisfied nation before friends and foes alike. After all, we are the leader of the Free World, wise and powerful, yet, a nation more feared today than revered.

We will do well, collectively and individually, to go up into the hill country and find the timbers of compassion, courage and love to build a new house, with open doors to welcome in the poor and the sick, those with no hope, no one to care about where they are, or how they are, or if they are.

It is one thing to feel sorry for those in poverty, it is quite another to enact a presidential proclamation that guarantees they remain chained to that post, as President George Bush did when he suspended the law that requires employers to pay the locally prevailing wage to construction workers on federally financed projects, a suspension that applies to parts of Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama and Florida.

President Bush says that by suspending the Davis-Bacon Act, he will be saving the taxpayers’ costs. Does he not realize we are a shamed people? Shamed before the world, but more importantly, shamed before ourselves? Ashamed of our homeless, our mentally confused who walk the streets mumbling to themselves, fearful of anyone who approaches. Ashamed of our multi-million dollar houses that are sending the working poor into homeless shelters, as their homes are demolished in favor of twelve-bedroom, fourteen-bathroom mansions, testimony to the greed that is rapidly dividing our nation into the haves and the have-nots.

Ashamed of sending the financially poor and intellectually bankrupt out into the business world, unprepared to earn a living, and without the financial resources to pay for private tutoring.

With decent wages, countless poor men and women, victims of Katrina and Rita, would experience true hope, perhaps for the first time in their lives. We can make that happen if we all barrage Congress with demands that the Davis-Bacon Act be reinstated in the above areas. This is our country. Let us build something better, by cleaning the inside of our national cup.

Dear Lord, please give us the wisdom and power to build anew, to find proper timbers in the hill country, worthy of You, worthy of our people. Amen.

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