Father Bill Terry of St. Anna’s Episcopal Church in New Orleans wants everyone to know what’s happening in New Orleans: too many murders with too few people held accountable.
He keeps track of the slayings on what he calls the “murder board,” a plastic board that hangs outside his church. He started listing murder victims earlier this year to humanize the headlines.
At first, the names were neatly typed by a printer. But as the killings continued at a rampant pace, he says, he resorted to adding victims’ names by hand with permanent marker.
“Numbers are very easy to deal with emotionally. When it becomes a human being, then we start to personalize and it’s harder to deal with. I want people to squirm. I want people to feel uncomfortable about the murders going on in the city,” Father Bill told CNN.
Gen Honore, who was comander of the Joint Task Force Katrina likes this prayer, the Prayer of St. Francis. It seems appropriate today.
[blockquote]Lord, make me an instrument of Thy peace;
where there is hatred, let me sow love;
where there is injury, pardon;
where there is doubt, faith;
where there is despair, hope;
where there is darkness, light;
and where there is sadness, joy.
O Divine Master,
grant that I may not so much seek to be consoled as to console;
to be understood, as to understand;
to be loved, as to love;
for it is in giving that we receive,
it is in pardoning that we are pardoned,
and it is in dying that we are born to Eternal Life.
Amen. [/blockquote]
St. Anna’s is doing a great deal. They have a mobile medical van and a terrific ministry to the musicians in the French Quarter. They are on the way to being an instrument of peace. I think they are doing this for the right reasons.
Sadly it sounds like the streets of Bagdad are safer than New Orleans.