As a researcher, I felt compelled to empirically test my observations about faith and disaster resilience. I began collecting data for my first Katrina study 2 months after the storm. Even now, on the 10th anniversary of Hurricane Katrina, I’m still studying faith and disaster resilience among Katrina survivors. Following are some of the empirical lessons I’ve learned along the way with my colleagues and students…

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The floodwaters retreated. Homes were rebuilt. New Orleans rebounded with Mardi Gras, jazz festivals and even a Super Bowl in 2013.

In the 10 years since Hurricane Katrina smashed the shoreline of the Gulf Coast, the images of despair grew distant.

But for the people who lost everything, they never went away.

In the immediate aftermath of the destruction, survivors opened up to NBC News about their loss, grief and rage.

We reconnected with those same survivors recently ”” and learned how the storm, even a decade later, still shapes their lives.

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The Rev. Jim Lewis, canon to the ordinary, applauded the ruling saying it “protects South Carolina churches from being added to the long list of properties that TEC seized, then either abandoned or sold off. The decision protects our freedom to embrace the faith Anglicans have practiced for hundreds of years ”” and not the new theology being imposed on TEC’s dwindling membership.”

A spokeswoman for local parishes that remain a part of The Episcopal Church declined to comment late Tuesday saying church leaders first needed time to analyze the lengthy ruling.

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Through the MPA, the Church of England contributed to this consultation process, affirming the aim of using mitochondrial replacement (or donation as it is also termed) while also differentiating between the two methodologies being proposed; one of which (pronuclear transfer ”“ PNT) required embryos to be created as mitochondrial donors and recipients, the other (maternal spindle transfer) did not. Although the creation of embryos may be licensed by the HFEA, the MPA pointed out that PNT carried greater ethical concerns for many Christians and, indeed, those of other faiths or none.

More significantly, mitochondrial replacement involves modification of the human germ-line, with donor mitochondria being transmitted to future generations through the maternal line. As well as ensuring the techniques were as safe as possible, concerns were expressed that this would not be taken as approval for modifying defective mitochondrial genes that resided in the nucleus. Other concerns had to do with as yet unknown interactions between the DNA in the mitochondria and the DNA in the nucleus; these might potentially cause abnormality or be found to influence significant personal qualities or characteristics.

Such concerns were recognised by the HFEA in its work and recommendations to the secretaries of state.

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When Hurricane Katrina destroyed Nikki Moon’s Bay Town Inn bed and breakfast resort in Bay St. Louis, she knew she’d return to Old Town some day.

Eight years later, the resort is back with more amenities and a unique space.

“I knew in my heart that I wanted to do it again,” Moon said. “I just had to wait for the timing to be right.”

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Grace Episcopal Church, a fixture on Canal Street in Mid-City for nearly 60 years, will close next month, Episcopal Bishop Morris Thompson said Monday.

The Episcopal Diocese of Louisiana hopes the closure is not permanent. It may be able to reopen the church in a year or so after rethinking its mission and gathering new resources, Thompson said.

Thompson said he informed Grace’s small congregation of his decision Dec. 4. He said there were fewer 15 people in the pews at one of the two services that morning.

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The Rev. Jerry Kramer, the Episcopal priest who threw his church into the recovery of Broadmoor after Hurricane Katrina, has left the church for a more conservative Anglican community.

Kramer, the former rector of the Free Church of the Annunciation, said by e-mail he now is affiliated with the Anglican Church in North America.

That community is composed of former Episcopalians who split with the U.S. church in 2008 over deep theological differences.

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Five years after Hurricanes Katrina devastated New Orleans and the Gulf Coast, survivors and those working on their behalf say work is far from finished.

Church World Service says that what progress has been made is in great part due to the support, funding and labour of the US faith community and of humanitarian agencies.

“If it weren’t for the volunteers and agencies who assisted me, I don’t know where I would be,” said Gloria Mouton, 62, whose home in New Orleans East was among those repaired by volunteers from across the US during the 2009 CWS Neighborhood New Orleans ecumenical project.

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It was a celebration of how people of different faiths can work together for the common good. An interfaith sunrise worship service at Trinity Episcopal Church in Pass Christian recognized the impact that many religious groups have had in hurricane recovery.

Jews, Christians. Muslims and Hare Krishnas were at the sunrise worship service. All believers were welcome.

“That we all serve an awesome God,” said Alice Graham, Mississippi Coast Interfaith Disaster Task Force. “We come to that service of God from different faith traditions. We’re unified in that we serve a God that calls us all into community.”

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KIM LAWTON, correspondent: About 20 minutes outside New Orleans, worshippers gather at First Baptist Church in Chalmette, the largest city in St. Bernard Parish. It’s a pretty typical Southern Baptist Sunday morning service.

REV JOHN DEE JEFFRIES (Preaching at First Baptist Church, Chalmette, Louisiana): Lord, what’s going on? Lord, why?

LAWTON: But that belies the incredible journey this congregation has made since Hurricane Katrina. More than half of the churches in St. Bernard Parish still haven’t come back, and most of them probably never will. First Baptist is not only back, but reinventing itself to help a community still struggling to recover.

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Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

As far as I am concerned, Tulane University President Scott Cowen is a national hero–someone needs to give the man a medal–KSH.

Locally and nationally, [Bishop Charles] Jenkins has described how the post-Katrina suffering of poor New Orleanians transformed his ministry and awakened him to the broad social and economic inequalities of life in New Orleans. But he has said the aftermath also left him medicated, prone to depression and frequently unable to focus on administration.

In the short term, Jenkins said in an interview this week, retirement will mean rest and diversion – building a new life with his wife, Louise, in rural St. Francisville, 100 miles north of New Orleans. Still a product of small-town north Louisiana, Jenkins has a new truck to enjoy. A new tractor is on order. He hopes to plant some trees and a garden.

And having rebuilt the Episcopal Diocese of Louisiana after Katrina to reflect his own radical conversion to social justice and racial reconciliation, illness or not, he said he hopes to stay involved in the work of Episcopal Community Services, the new social-justice arm of the diocese, “as much as is appropriate.”

But having said that, he also expressed a temporary desire to “recede into the mist; deep into the mist.”

If that sounds contradictory, so be it, Jenkins said. If Episcopalians traditionally value the “middle way,” Jenkins has raised it to an art. “I’m good at living in tension,” he said.

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The Rev. Jerry Kramer, a hyper-energetic Episcopal priest who transformed a small neighborhood church into a powerhouse that helped drive the post-Katrina recovery of the entire Broadmoor neighborhood, stunned his parishioners last week with news that, sick and exhausted, he has resigned.

In an accompanying e-mail message, Kramer said that if he recovers after several months on a temporary medical disability, he hopes next year to return to missionary work in Tanzania with his wife and two children.

“But I have to get well to do that, ” he said last week. “I need some rest. I absolutely need some rest.

“I haven’t been able to put in a full day (of work) in over a year.”

In the four years since Katrina, Kramer developed a reputation as a innovative priest who, from the moment he paddled up to his flooded church on South Claiborne Avenue, merged its recovery with the recovery of the surrounding neighborhood.

One of God’s special people. May the Lord bless him and his family. Read it all–KSH

From here:

2) Several of you have begun to hear whispers of the financial challenge that the diocesan ministries will be facing in the year ahead. The impact of our nation’s economy has impacted all of us and will contribute to a significant tightening of all of our budgets.

The unique challenge facing our diocesan ministries are twofold:

First, 30% of the diocesan budget is funded by investment income. We have been able to develop new and innovative ministries during the times of growth in our investment portfolio. These, as we all know, are difficult times for such income resources. Our income will be greatly reduced.

Secondly, the diocese took out a sizeable loan to buy properties on the gulf coast for the rebuilding of the congregations following Hurricane Katrina. When the original beach front properties are sold the loan will be repaid. Until such sale we are liable for a substantial interest payment. Until now, we have been able to pay the interest from contributions for post-Katrina recovery. Those funds are now depleted.

I have made the decision, and will ask the Executive Committee to concur, that to be “one church” means that we are willing to bear one another’s burdens. To ask any of these three churches to assume their share of the indirect payment would be to crush them as they seek to recover and rebuild. Thus, I am prepared to make the necessary sacrifices within our common life and ministries to give these congregations relief from the unsustainable debt burden until their properties are sold.

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The full details of what [Dr. Anna] Pou did, and why, may never be known. But the arguments she is making about disaster preparedness ”” that medical workers should be virtually immune from prosecution for good-faith work during devastating events and that lifesaving interventions, including evacuation, shouldn’t necessarily go to the sickest first ”” deserve closer attention. This is particularly important as health officials are now weighing, with little public discussion and insufficient scientific evidence, protocols for making the kind of agonizing decisions that will, no doubt, arise again.

At a recent national conference for hospital disaster planners, Pou asked a question: “How long should health care workers have to be with patients who may not survive?” The story of Memorial Medical Center raises other questions: Which patients should get a share of limited resources, and who decides? What does it mean to do the greatest good for the greatest number, and does that end justify all means? Where is the line between appropriate comfort care and mercy killing? How, if at all, should doctors and nurses be held accountable for their actions in the most desperate of circumstances, especially when their government fails them?

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The storm that crashed into New Orleans and the Mississippi Gulf Coast four years ago wreaked a shocking $80 billion in damage and resulted in 1,836 confirmed fatalities. But since then, its overall legacy has broadened and, one hopes, has not been all bad.

Count these among the lessons it taught and the changes it spawned:

ӢVolunteers matter a lot in a time of crisis.

”¢FEMA’s mission has shifted from a top-down to a bottom-up approach.

ӢNew appreciation has emerged of the need to retain and restore wetlands to help absorb storm surges.

ӢStorm-tracking capabilities have advanced in ways that improve public safety.

ӢHurricanes have moved to the center of the climate-change debate.

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“You know the joke,” …[Gregory Aymond] said in an interview before his installation as New Orleans’ 14th archbishop on Thursday (Aug. 20). “There are two things every bishop can count on ”” never missing a meal, and never hearing the truth.”

Politically, while he says abortion and other life issues like euthanasia and embryonic stem cell research are fundamental, during the last election cycle he urged Austin voters also to be mindful of candidates’ approach to other social issues, like the death penalty, racism and poverty.

“We’re lucky to have had him,” said the Rev. Louis Brusatti, dean of the school of humanities at St. Edward’s University in Austin. “He’s moderate; he’s consensual; he’s low-key. He’s not an ideologue. We could’ve done a lot worse.”

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They are an unlikely pair, chatting up people on porch stoops in the poorer neighborhoods of New Orleans: Bishop Charles Jenkins, 57, the son of white, rural north Louisiana and pastor to 18,000 south Louisiana Episcopalians, and Jerome Smith, 69, black and rumpled, son of Treme, a former Freedom Rider from the civil rights movement.

Before Hurricane Katrina, in the days when Jenkins says he was focused more on the well-being of his predominantly white church than his predominantly black city, they might never have crossed paths.

But since Katrina, they have forged a relationship in which Jenkins, now deep into a profound personal and spiritual transformation, said he has come to love and rely on Smith.

Smith, a sometimes fiery activist in whom Jenkins sees a gentle soul, has become one of the bishop’s principal guides into New Orleans’ poor African-American culture, a landscape Jenkins said he previously glimpsed but did not understand.

“He’s my mentor, you know,” Jenkins said recently. “It is a good day whenever Jerome Smith comes by.”

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The Rt. Rev. Charles Jenkins, Bishop of Louisiana, has announced plans to retire at the end of 2009. He informed the diocese’s standing committee of his decision Dec. 4, according to a letter published on the diocese’s website.

“This move is based on issues of health and a concern for the mission strategy of the diocese,” Bishop Jenkins said. “To that end, I now call for the election of the eleventh Bishop of Louisiana.”

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The Archdiocese of New Orleans has formally closed seven historic Catholic parishes as a painful downsizing of the regional church in the wake of Hurricane Katrina nears completion.

Archbishop Alfred Hughes signed the relevant decrees; formal notifications were to be distributed in letters hand-delivered to affected rectories on Friday (Oct. 17) afternoon, archdiocesan spokeswoman Sarah Comiskey said.

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A prolonged recession and a tight credit market would cripple New Orleans’ still-fragile recovery from Hurricane Katrina, delaying or eliminating road work, new construction and repairs to homes and businesses that have stood empty since 2005.

The city’s infrastructure plans should stay on track, but a real estate expert calls it a “terrifying” scenario: A lack of sufficient credit would smother companies trying to start up or expand, and with them the new jobs needed to grow the area’s economy. It would choke the flow of cash that developers need to build new homes and first-time homeowners need to buy them. And it would make it tough for the city to sell bonds to finance rebuilding projects on its appointed timeline.

Parking lots and buildings slated for reincarnation as gleaming high-rises might never move beyond blueprints. Small businesses, a lifeblood to the economy and neighborhood anchors, may never reopen or expand.

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Watch it all. I kept thinking of what happened three years ago and those involved in terms of the Shakespeare quote posted below. The collateral damage from one of these major storms is hard fully to describe, and can only be partly understood by those who have lived through them–KSH.

Dear All,

Today, on this third anniversary of Katrina, there was so much i wanted to share about the progress we’ve made thanks to our dear friends, the lessons we’ve learned along the way, and some really exciting plans for continued Kingdom building and renewal here in New Orleans. Instead, we’ve spent the day packing up the office and church, making sure our parishioners have made plans, and checking on the more vulnerable members of our Broadmoor community.

For the most part, folks are doing quite well. We’re miles ahead of where we were in terms of preparation for Katrina. Even the State appears to have its act together. No major news from our city, however, since “Our Mayor” lives in the Dallas area. All things considered, we’re looking really good at this point in the ballgame.

While an official evacuation has yet to be called, the highways going out of town are stacked up with crawling traffic. Our Annunciation/Broadmoor caravan intends to leave for Tennessee on Sunday morning. Stacy and the kids will bug out for Baton Rouge at some point on Saturday.

The Annunciation campus will close officially at 5p today, Friday, and re-open after the storm passes. We have not only Gustav to watch . . . but Hannah as well.
I’m signing off for now…and will begin blogging at http://annunciationbroadmoor.blogspot.com.

Prayers and Blessings from the Big Uneasy,

–(The Rev.) Jerry and Stacy Kramer serve at Church of the Annunciation, New Orleans, LA

Heading into the final week of August 2005, the Rev. Louis Adams had a verse from Nehemiah much in mind. In the passage, the prophet described Jerusalem in ruins, its gates burned by invaders. Then he declared, “Come, let us build up the wall of Jerusalem, that we be no more a reproach.” Mr. Adams and his congregants in the Holy Ground Baptist Church here had spent three years and $125,000 buying and rebuilding a dilapidated church in the Lower Ninth Ward. Once their labors were done, they would no longer have to worship as weekend tenants of the Care Bear Daycare Center. They would no longer be sojourners.

The pews, the altar, the baptismal pool were already installed in their new home. The kitchen and the social hall were complete. All that was left was to lay the cedar planks of the floor, then tack down the carpet. On the third Sunday of September, Holy Ground’s members would march into a sanctuary of their own.

Before then, of course, Hurricane Katrina struck and Holy Ground sat deep in floodwater. A house across the street, which had been swept off its foundation, had smashed into one corner of the church.

And so began a story of destruction and dispossession, of natural disaster and human failure, that has yet to end, even as the third anniversary of the disaster approaches.

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Watch the whole very encouraging story.

“IN an instant all will vanish and we’ll be alone once more, in the midst of nothingness.”

When the actor Wendell Pierce spoke these words in performances of “Waiting for Godot” here last month, he really was in the middle of nothingness, or what looked a lot like it.

The performances, by the Classical Theater of Harlem, took place outdoors in parts of the city particularly hard hit by Hurricane Katrina and slow to recover. In the Gentilly section, a gutted, storm-ruined house was used as a set. In the Lower Ninth Ward, where one of the largest black neighborhoods in a mostly black city was all but erased by roof-high water surging through a levee, the intersection of two once-busy streets was the stage.

The streets are empty now, lined with bare lots. A few trees and houses stand far off. Reclamation work by returning homeowners and volunteers is under way. But some residents live in cramped trailers supplied by the Federal Emergency Management Agency, here widely despised for its inefficiency. Under the circumstances, Beckett’s words sounded less like an existentialist cri de coeur than like a terse topographic description.

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When Paul Chan visited New Orleans for the first time in 2006, the gutted houses, abandoned streets and bare trees reminded him of Samuel Beckett’s legendary play Waiting for Godot.

“The sense of waiting is legion here,” Chan said. “People are waiting to come home. Waiting for the levee board to OK them to rebuild. Waiting for Road Home money. Waiting for honest construction crews that won’t rip them off. Waiting for phone and electric companies.”

The artist and activist says the desolation in New Orleans inspired him to “create art in places where we ought not have any.” This weekend, Chan’s vision comes to fruition in the Lower Ninth Ward, where the New York public arts group Creative Time and the Classical Theater of Harlem are staging free, outdoor performances of Waiting for Godot. They will continue next weekend in the city’s Gentilly neighborhood, in front of a flooded home.

Listen to it all from NPR.

Two months after the Rev. Lance Eden arrived as pastor of First Street United Methodist Church, Hurricane Katrina struck.

Mr. Eden, newly ordained, quickly picked up skills few in the pulpit typically need. He learned how to restore a church whose roof had been peeled off and whose bell tower had been knocked askew. He played host to hundreds of volunteers who came to gut and rebuild. And most recently ”” and reluctantly ”” he took on the role of developer.

“I’d rather be doing something else,” Mr. Eden said. “But when you hear stories like the Good Samaritan or about how Jesus walks into the temple and overturns the tables of the money-changers, it charges us as a church to make sure justice is done for all people.”

First Street’s community development corporation owns 28 properties in Central City, a neighborhood of candy-colored bungalows, and Mr. Eden said he would like to acquire 20 more for moderate- to low-income housing.

New Orleans’s patchy recovery has largely bypassed places where the working class and the poor lived, like Central City and the Lower Ninth Ward. Many former residents lack the means to return. Instead, churches and groups with religious affiliations, citing Scripture’s call to help the stranger and the neighbor, have taken on building affordable housing.

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With permission–KSH.

When all the bishops
Have rebuilt New Orleans
Painted, dry-walled, hammered nails
Together
I wonder whether they will gather
On Monday
And immediately see
They are as broken as New Orleans
We are as broken
As New Orleans
Even with the money poured in
And poured out

I wonder whether plaster dust
Will make a difference
In the complexion
Of the gathering
On Monday
Or will they all be showered
And mostly shaved
Present themselves whole and healthy
Proud of what they accomplished
Together
(the ones who stayed)
Proud of what they accomplished
Apart
(the ones who left)
Proud and whole
And never broken
Two parts
Never broken

Catharine Phillips
September 21, 2007

Archbishop of Canterbury holds closed door meetings, visits 9th ward

By Bruce Nolan

Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams spent seven and a half hours behind closed doors today talking with 150 Episcopal bishops and delegates from overseas Anglican churches about rising tensions over homosexuality that threaten to rupture the Anglican Communion.

He emerged from the Hotel InterContinental to be driven to the Lower Ninth Ward to see Episcopal hurricane relief efforts there, including a new church that will occupy a now-ruined drugstore a few steps from the home of New Orleans musician Fats Domino.

Williams blessed the grafitti-covered building and posed for pictures with curious bystanders. Diana Meyers, a worker with St. Anna’s medical mission, gave Williams a rough, foot-tall wooden cross she said was made of the debris of wrecked shrimp and oyster boats.

Full story here.