The disaster that was New Orleans has changed the face of the nation, if not the world. As a city of wildly diverse cultural significance, New Orleans was less a part of the U.S. but rather part of the global whole, perhaps one of the first multinational centers the world has known. How many thousands will be among the dead or missing? How many more will die as a result of Hurricane Katrina once complications from disease and injury take hold? I believe that the count will never be fully known.
I remember reading in the New York Times a couple of years ago about how the city of New Orleans was contemplating abandoning the city in the event of another major hurricane. The word ‘abandoning’ summons up different thoughts and feelings for me. It is not an ‘evacuation’, where the return of the populace is expected. It is a complete writing off of the city and an establishment of a ‘new’ New Orleans on higher ground, farther north. This is something that one reads of in The Bible, or some other ancient text. Cities and empires laid waste by nature, swallowed up by the earth or water, never to be seen again.
So what will the new city look like, if built? Please leave your comments and I’ll choose the winner next week.
We live in amazing and strange times, but what else is new?
I chose not to go to my homegroup’s celebration today. Even though several people I knew, including my sponsor, were celebrating long term sobriety, I suddenly didn’t feel comfortable suffering through what I imagined would be a controversial meeting. The person chairing has only about 6 months sobriety and let me know that she planned on using this position as a soapbox to further the cause of a politically correct dualism for AA. I just couldn’t be there to see that. Instead I worked on some reading for school (Plato) and had some lunch. I’ll hit a meeting tonight where I’ll be making the coffee and I know that the program is strong.
I would have liked to have been there for my sponsor, but he and I are not seeing eye-to-eye on this subject of allowing drug addicts to speak about their problems relating to drug addiction in an AA meeting. I don’t care what anyone says, heroin is not alcohol is not cocaine is not crystal meth. He and I definitely do not agree with the idea of AA for alcoholics only, etc…but what will come of it I do not know. I do not feel that anything we did at the business meeting was wrong, although it may seem to be willful. I am at a point in my sobriety where succinctness and direction is important.
I’ve talked about this until I’m blue in the face, and I’m sick of it. Do I need to admit that I’ve done something wrong? Maybe I should take all the blame, crucify myself for all those self-righteous SOBs who think I’ve been divisive, and be done with it. That’s such an easy way to go…so appealing to my sensibilities.
Nah.
They’re not worth it.
Johnnyboy