I will make it a waste...   Isaiah 5:6

Is that really what happens?  Does God really decide to lay waste to entire towns, whole sections of the country?  There are some people who think so -- they read the weather reports as signs of the end of the world, signals of the judgment of a wrathful God upon a sinful humanity. 

Most of us do not believe this.  Most of us think that weather just happens, that sometimes its devastating effects are worsened by human action or inaction, and that the only for-sure signal natural disasters give us is the call to gather every ounce of our compassion, every bit of our skill and a major part of our resources to help those who need it.  When the world seems to be falling apart, all we really know is that it is time for all of us to come together.

We have a lot to do with whether or not the areas devastated by one hurricane hard on the heels of another -- and the season not over yet -- becomes a wasteland.   It doesn't have to.  A wasteland is a place in which life is impossible, a place with no resources for life, a place where there can be no fellowship or joy.  This need not be.

An entire nation has come to the aid of people rendered homeless by these two tragedies, discovering a kinship with total strangers many didn't know they shared.   Episcopal Relief and Development was on the phones and in the air right away, first in one place and then in another, providing immediate support for local dioceses and their parishes in the daunting work of cleanup and rebuilding. 

And all the while, the need in other parts of the world continues unabated -- the need for hope and help for those with HIV/AIDS and their families in Africa, hope and help for post-tsunami rebuilding in India, Indonesia and  Sri Lanka, hope and help for the starving in Niger and Sudan, hopeful development in South and Central America. 

I am in none of those places. And yet, I am really in all of them, through the privilege of my sharing in the work of ERD.   I pick up a phone that works in a comfortable office with electric lights that also work, and I read a person from ERD my credit card number.  I thank her, she thanks me, and we hang up.  I get back to work, knowing as I do that I am right where I need to be. 
+
To learn more about ERD's work in response to the Gulf Coast hurricanes and to human need throughout the world,  and to make a donation, visit http://www.er-d.org/ or telephone 1-800-334-7626, ext 5129.