Conversations and Katrina - Page 2
But, what I am suggesting is that the conversations need to transcend racial and economic issues and go deeper. Our society puts so much of its value on the material part of life that, even as we discuss rebuilding New Orleans, it is about houses and jobs.
If, in fact, people want to be heard, this is the perfect time to start. The resilience of the residents of this area is heartwarming. Now is the time we can learn from each other. What really matters now and for the next seven generations is to get to the heart of what we, as a society want to create.
Visionary leadership can lead us to discuss what is at the core of what came out of the Katrina experience. It showed both a sense of alienation and the desire to grab onto the true fact that we are all connected and no one wins unless we all do.
This is a way of thinking that is deeply intuitive, yet in our polarized world view of “for or against“ it has become counter-intuitive. We grab onto the stories of hands reaching out to help. Sadly, they are immediately canceled out by louder stories of the senseless gunning down of people, often in the same part of town. The conversation that hurricane Katrina has requested, that the BP fiasco has requested, is for us to ask “what is our destination, what are the parts of the puzzle that are our common future?”
As I listened to the weather report for the Labor Day holiday, I had an uncomfortable feeling that the pattern of crisis may have to repeat itself before we will really start to talk. Let’s hope not.
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