Tuesday, March 04, 2008
Tale of Two Cities
The year was 1983. DenverMedStudent, soon to be DenverDoc, had decided to do his
residency in Salt Lake City. We were still living in Durham, North
Carolina.
I turned on the TV in May and discovered that a huge snowpack had melted
suddenly, sending floodwaters down into Salt Lake City. Volunteers
showed up in droves with sandbags and built the State Street River. The
water flowed down this major street for a couple of weeks. Then, in
June, the volunteers came back and cleaned up.
"Gee, sweetheart, what kind of place are we moving to? In any normal,
red-blooded American city, there would have been flooding, riots, and
looting. In Salt Lake, they just showed up and built a river. I'll bet
there were women back a couple of blocks making sandwiches!"
Fast forward 22 years. My middle daughter was an upcoming Senior at
Tulane. My brother, the geophysicist, started calling her every few
hours five days before Katrina hit. "Hey, Kate, when are you leaving?
Come to Houston. The worst that could happen is you'll get a nice
dinner and a little road trip. Come on, get out of there."
Kate of course lingered until Sunday. She and two friends left Sunday
morning along with half the city (Thank God.) The five hour drive to
Houston turned into a 15 hour marathon.
The next morning, the levees broke.
My daughter's boyfriend stayed glued to CNN for days. He watched the
endless loop of rushing water, hysterical reports of racial violence
(most of which turned out to be false). But, New Orleans WAS a normal
red-blooded American city and there were, in fact, riots and looting.
Two cities, both flooded. (I don't pretend that the Salt Lake flood was
anything like the scale of Katrina, or course.) One city had a strong,
cohesive social structure formed by a strong, vibrant central Church.
One city had no cohesion at all. The difference in results was
incredibly dramatic.
I'm not a Mormon. I don't play one on television. But I can tell you I
saw a city with some structure, some unity. Did the Mormons of the last
century do some beastly things? Well, probably so. They had to hire
from the Human Race. Have Catholics done some beastly things? Yep.
How about Protestants? You bet. Buddhists? Probably. Moslems? Stay
tuned. As a young agnostic, I was impressed with the power the church
had, mostly for good, in Salt Lake. As an older Evangelical, I was
impressed how rapidly a city could go bad without social and religious
structure. I'm also impressed with how effective all of our Christian
churches, of all stripes, were compared to the governmental agencies in
New Orleans.
My opinion is that only Christianity has much chance of uniting us in a
desirable way. Islam has, unfortunately, a chance of uniting us as
well. Secular humanism? Not a chance.
residency in Salt Lake City. We were still living in Durham, North
Carolina.
I turned on the TV in May and discovered that a huge snowpack had melted
suddenly, sending floodwaters down into Salt Lake City. Volunteers
showed up in droves with sandbags and built the State Street River. The
water flowed down this major street for a couple of weeks. Then, in
June, the volunteers came back and cleaned up.
"Gee, sweetheart, what kind of place are we moving to? In any normal,
red-blooded American city, there would have been flooding, riots, and
looting. In Salt Lake, they just showed up and built a river. I'll bet
there were women back a couple of blocks making sandwiches!"
Fast forward 22 years. My middle daughter was an upcoming Senior at
Tulane. My brother, the geophysicist, started calling her every few
hours five days before Katrina hit. "Hey, Kate, when are you leaving?
Come to Houston. The worst that could happen is you'll get a nice
dinner and a little road trip. Come on, get out of there."
Kate of course lingered until Sunday. She and two friends left Sunday
morning along with half the city (Thank God.) The five hour drive to
Houston turned into a 15 hour marathon.
The next morning, the levees broke.
My daughter's boyfriend stayed glued to CNN for days. He watched the
endless loop of rushing water, hysterical reports of racial violence
(most of which turned out to be false). But, New Orleans WAS a normal
red-blooded American city and there were, in fact, riots and looting.
Two cities, both flooded. (I don't pretend that the Salt Lake flood was
anything like the scale of Katrina, or course.) One city had a strong,
cohesive social structure formed by a strong, vibrant central Church.
One city had no cohesion at all. The difference in results was
incredibly dramatic.
I'm not a Mormon. I don't play one on television. But I can tell you I
saw a city with some structure, some unity. Did the Mormons of the last
century do some beastly things? Well, probably so. They had to hire
from the Human Race. Have Catholics done some beastly things? Yep.
How about Protestants? You bet. Buddhists? Probably. Moslems? Stay
tuned. As a young agnostic, I was impressed with the power the church
had, mostly for good, in Salt Lake. As an older Evangelical, I was
impressed how rapidly a city could go bad without social and religious
structure. I'm also impressed with how effective all of our Christian
churches, of all stripes, were compared to the governmental agencies in
New Orleans.
My opinion is that only Christianity has much chance of uniting us in a
desirable way. Islam has, unfortunately, a chance of uniting us as
well. Secular humanism? Not a chance.
