Each spring, MCLA’s Center for Service organizes an Alternative Spring Break , an opportunity for students to leave campus and volunteer for the week. This year, the group is returning to New Orleans. Teddy Bourgeois (’07) joined the group this year and will be sending dispatches back. This is his third report.
I am so proud of our group. After another long day of planting, a good friend of Emily DeMoor’s best friends came to our campsite and cooked an amazing dinner for us: salad, red beans and rice, sausages, and shrimp. We stuffed ourselves and a couple students collected recipes from Carolyn, our esteemed chef.
After dinner, Carolyn shared her experiences around hurricane Katrina. She worked as a counselor and saw many New Orleanians after the storm. We all marveled at her poise, suffering through the hurricane herself and helping so many people through their own struggles.
Our students posed a few questions and Caroline’s talk turned into a group discussion. I was impressed with the insight our student had on the recovery, government response to the storm, and the debate over rebuilding the city. We all went to sleep with a lot to think about. Good thing, because thunderstorms kept us up for a while.
3 responses so far ↓
1 MONIQUE DAVIDS // Mar 23, 2008 at 6:37 am
WE APPRECIATE ALL THE HARD WORK YOU AND YOUR COLLEAGUES ARE DOING.
GO TED!
AUNTIE M.
2 Emily DeMoor // Mar 23, 2008 at 2:11 pm
Easter Reflection on Alternate Spring Break 2008
Teddy, thank you for your thoughtful reflection. It prompts me to share some of my own thoughts on community.
Although we come from several religious backgrounds and belief systems we share a common story – the unfolding of life on this glorious planet as we spin out into an expanding universe. For some of us, today is Easter, a celebration of resurrection, rebirth and renewal. The celebration of renewal appears in spiritual thought and practices throughout human history. As I reflect on our past week together in the New Orleans area, I think of all of nature, including us, as participating in the Great Alleluia! We are active participants in the story. By removing invasive species and planting 25,000 new trees, we played an important role in the resurrection of this fragile and damaged ecosystem. And, as I think forward to the future, I recall the words of Rev. Thomas Berry who said that we will go into the future together as one sacred universe community or we will not go into the future at all. We are in this together. The human community cannot exist for long outside of healthy ecosystems.
We were so fortunate to have met up twice with Rev. Mary Harrington’s Gulf Coast Volunteers for the Long Haul during our visit to Louisiana! Some of you commented on how touching it was to hear from the people who have benefited from the work of this wonderful group of volunteers. Perhaps our work in the park seemed like a more thankless job because the trees cannot express gratitude – at least not in human voices or language. But, perhaps if you listen very closely with your senses that have been so fine-tuned this week as we deciphered the invasive species from the indigenous ones and watched and listened carefully for sudden pools of water, fire ants, snakes, critters, and each other (asking for a certain tool or falling backwards into the swampy muck), we will hear Earth’s gratitude in the whisper of the oaks in the wind or the songs of the birds and other creatures whose habitat is being restored. We felt our senses sharpen into a deeper Earth Literacy – one that may better enable us to discern the many and varied voices of hope and healing in a wounded world.
In this spirit, I would like to share some thoughts from E.O. Wilson’s book “The Creation, An Appeal to Save Life on Earth” (2006), which I read during the plane ride home yesterday. In this work Wilson warns us that civilizations collapse when their environments are ruined; Homo sapiens is a species confined to an extremely small niche. We saw this vividly illustrated by Katrina and her aftermath. Speaking to both religious and secular readers, Wilson reminds us that “Only in what remains of Eden, teeming with life forms independent of us, is it possible to experience the kind of wonder that shaped the human psyche at its birth” (p. 12). For many, the natural world is a source of spiritual inspiration as well as physical sustenance and thus your helping to restore it is a great gift to the human and non-human New Orleans community.
Wilson’s argument becomes more urgent when he writes: “Living nature is nothing more than the commonality of organisms in the wild state and the physical and chemical equilibrium their species generate through interaction with one another. But it is also nothing less than that commonality and equilibrium. The power of living Nature lies in sustainability through complexity. Destabilize it by degrading it to a simpler state, as we seem bent on doing, and the result could be catastrophic. The organisms most affected are likely to be the largest and most complex, including human beings” (p. 32).
After days of removing Chinese Tallow and fennel from Fountainebleau State Park, I suspect you can relate to Wilson’s summary statement regarding invasive species: “Alien Invaders are a form of Biological Pollution; as Strangers in Paradise and Life Out of Bounds, they have become America’s Least Wanted.
As I former New Orleanian, I thank you so much for your hard work this week planting new trees and removing invasive species. As you heard firsthand at our gathering Thursday evening, the people of the New Orleans area are very grateful for your work. Their lives and spirits are tied to the local landscape, thus, some might say, you are doing sacred work.
I encourage you to envision the human community as part of the larger life community and participate in any and every way you can in this post-Katrina rebirth and renewal – through upcoming MCLA trips and through Rev. Mary’s Long Haul group. All entry points into what Rev. Thomas Berry calls “The Great Work” are most welcome and appreciated.
Gratefully yours,
Emily
3 richard agbortoko // Mar 23, 2008 at 5:50 pm
Talking with Carolyn was great because we get to get an insiders take on the issue of Hurrican katrina and the rebuilding strategy. It was comforting to hear that are work down there is appreciated and equally comforting see our fellow students express their desire to make a difference.
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