Why I Believe That the Bible Is Not Inspired by God--Three Reasons

Francis Schaeffer said that he became convinced of the truth of the Bible upon reading the Bible all the way through. He could tell that the Bible was inspired by God. It had the ring of truth. This astounds me.

I, too, have read the Bible all the way through--more than once--and this has convinced me that the Bible is most definitely not inspired by God. I say this for four reasons. I will discuss three of these reasons in this post, and the fourth reason in my next post. If Francis Schaeffer were alive today, I would love to hear his response to what I have to say.

CULTURAL ASSUMPTIONS. First, I'll need to explain something about culture. All of us grow up within a culture and absorb our culture's values and assumptions. We absorb these values and assumptions at such a deep level that we believe them to be Reality--The Way Things Are.

For example, our culture places such a high value on individualism and competition that it is obvious to us that species and individuals within species are competing to survive. Nature operates on the principle of survival of the fittest--that's Reality, The Way Things Are--it's plain to anyone who looks at the world around us.

It might shock us, therefore, to learn that survival of the fittest is not plain at all to a Native Australian, whose culture emphasizes cooperation. Looking at nature, a Native Australian sees a vast web of cooperation, where some animals volunteer to be food for other animals so that life on earth may continue. To Native Australians, it is obvious that nature cooperates and that some creatures sacrifice themselves for the sake of life--that's Reality, The Way Things Are--it's plain as day to anyone who looks.

My point here is that cultures have different values and make different assumptions about Reality. God, though, dwells within what is truly Real. The Creator of the entire universe is not enmeshed in any earthly culture, as we are. God, the Creator of all, stands outside culture and would speak to any culture with clear moral discernment based on true Reality, What Really Is.

Yet God as depicted in the Bible does not do this. The Biblical God makes the same cultural assumptions as the Hebrews! I find it nonsense to believe that the Creator of the universe cannot get past seeing the world through a Hebrew cultural lens.

Hebrew culture was based on relationships of dominance and subordination: men over women, parents over children, masters over slaves, Hebrews over foreigners. Slavery was a given. War was the accepted means of settling disputes as well as simply expanding one's territory.

The Biblical God accepts all this as Reality. It's The Way Things Are. But if we're talking about the real God of all, wouldn't we find God dismantling the dominance/subordination system, the institution of slavery, and violence as a means of settling conflict?

Instead, we find the Biblical God commanding the Hebrews to invade the land of the non-aggressive Canaanites. And when nations beyond Canaan were conquered, we find that God tells the Hebrews to take for themselves all the young unmarried women. This is SEXUAL SLAVERY! Of course, these young unmarried women belonged to three subordinate classes: woman, foreigner, conquered. In a dominance/subordination world, they were doomed.

The Biblical God is so imbued with the Hebrew cultural worldview--the dominance/subordination system is such an intricate part of Reality for this God--that this God can authorize sexual slavery without batting an eye. God doesn't even SEE the horror.

This does not have the ring of truth. It has the ring of despair. What chance would I have in a world where God blithely offers young conquered unmarried women to their conquering males?

So we have a Biblical God who can't see past Hebrew cultural assumptions. How did Francis Schaeffer answer this, I wonder.

FEAR-BASED OBEDIENCE. The Biblical God uses fear to command obedience. God scared the Hebrews to death with all that thunder and lightning on Mount Sinai when God gave Moses the commandments. The least disobedience received incredibly harsh punishment: God ordered that a man be stoned to death for the crime of gathering sticks on the Sabbath. And one didn't even necessarily have to do anything wrong to incur God's wrath--one could be punished simply for being related to a person who disobeyed God. When Achan stole some of the spoils of war that God wanted destroyed, not only was Achan stoned but also his whole household, including Achan's children and--get this--all Achan's oxen, asses, and sheep! This is rule by terror.

There is no ring of truth here. Again, we have the ring of despair. What chance would I have in a world where God kills a man's child and animals for that man's disobedience?

How can I believe in a God who would have me tiptoe through life with a knot of fear in the pit of my stomach lest I misstep and be crushed by God. What did Francis Schaeffer say to this?

DON'T QUESTION. The Biblical God does not seem to want us to use our minds. Whenever a Biblical prophet brings God's word to the people, it is clear that the people are to obey--or else. They are not to question.

This is far different from those present-day prophets whom I respect, such as Gary Zukav. When Gary has a message from God to impart, he always says something like this: I have something to say that I believe is from God. But it's very important that you not swallow what I say automatically as absolute truth. Instead, use your own discernment. Listen to what I have to say and see whether or not it rings true for you. Always remember that this word is coming to you through a human filter.

None of the Biblical prophets ever says anything like this. And considering the huge filter of Hebrew cultural assumptions through which we hear God's word in the Bible, it seems that discernment in reading the Bible is highly in order. Without that discernment, what do we have? We have people who believe that God approves of slavery, that God assigns women a place subordinate to men, that God condemns any homosexual act even between two people in a life-long committed relationship.

This does not have the ring of truth. Truth is not afraid of questions. Truth welcomes discernment. I actually do have some idea of what Francis Schaeffer would say to this because he believed in absolute truth. But I would still like to hash out the ideas of discernment and human filters with him.

This post gives three reasons why I believe that the Bible is not inspired by God. My next post will give a fourth reason, a reason that deserves a post of its own.

The Dead Are Close to Us

I believe that the dead are very close to us. They are no more than a thought away. They are not gone. They are very present.

Often, though, when someone dies, we experience gone-ness. As far as we can tell, our loved one is gone. Here's why it feels that way. Something, indeed, is gone. What's gone is our loved one's presence in a physical body on earth. Our loved one is no longer with us in physical form. This means that we can no longer see or hear or touch our loved one. And we are so bound to the physical experience of each other that, when we can no longer perceive someone with our five senses, we feel that the person is gone.

When a loved one dies, our grief and longing are intense. We want to sit down with our loved one as we used to do, gaze into our loved one's eyes, hear our loved one's voice, hold our loved one's hand--but we cannot. And since this physical way is the only way we know to experience someone, for us our loved one is gone.

But there is another way to experience and be with those who have died. It is not a physical way. But it is a way.

I learned about this other way to be with the dead when my mother died. I'll try to explain what happened, starting with my mother's funeral.

I knew that people would come up to me at my mother's funeral and say things. And I determined that I would do my best to accept graciously whatever they said. It is not easy to know what to say to family members of the dead and people try their best to say something comforting and empathetic, so I determined to take everything anyone said as a gift.

What people actually did say fell into two categories: (1) it's terrible that your mother died, and we'll miss her immensely, and (2) it's a blessing that your mother was spared prolonged suffering, and she is in a better place. I was able to respond gratefully to both types of comments.

One woman, however, told me something that turned out to be a special gift in an odd way. She said, "Karen, these next months are going to be difficult. You'll find that you'll have to remember again and again that your mother is dead. As things happen during the day, you'll think, I'll have to tell my mother about this, and then you'll remember, Oh. I can't tell her. She's dead. And you'll have this experience many times."

I realized that this woman was telling me these things to help me, but as she talked, I became aware that I knew I would not have the experience she was describing. A thought formulated itself in my mind: No. That is not how it will be for me. When I want to tell my mother something, I will simply tell her. And she will hear me.

So this woman gave me the gift of making conscious something that I hadn't realized I knew: I can continue to communicate with my mother.

And this is what I have done. I know that my mother is present, just not physically. When I want to tell my mother something, I simply tell her. I can tell her out loud, or whisper it to her, or think it to her. And I know she receives my message. Here's an example. My mother loved flowers. I have no doubt that she still does. When I see lovely flowers, I can admire them, think them to my mother, and know that she's right beside me enjoying them, too.

I do not feel my mother's presence in any tangible way. I simply know she's there. And that's enough for me. I don't need to feel anything.

My mother died in 1997. Since then, my father died in 2000 and my sister Sandra in 2002. Occasionally, I believe that one or another of them says something to me. This comes simply in the form of a thought--a quiet, natural thought, not at all jarring or attention-catching. The thought is something that I probably wouldn't think on my own, and it has a Mom quality or a Dad quality or a Sandra quality to it. This doesn't happen often, but when it does, I pause and say, for example, "Mom, I hear you. Thank you for this thought. I love you and wish you all joy in the spirit world." I am grateful when this happens, but I would be content without this, just knowing that my dead loved ones are near and that they hear what I think to them.

I feel very sad when I hear people say of the dead, "If only my mother could be at my wedding," or "Your father would be so proud if he could only be here to celebrate your achievement." I believe that my dead mother and father are at all my important events. They themselves are really and truly present, just not in physical form. This means that I don't see them or hear them or feel them. But I know they are there.

I believe that if we can open ourselves to a different way of being with the dead, we'll find that they are very close to us. If we cling to what we can no longer have--seeing, hearing, and touching our loved ones--we will experience only gone-ness. But if we can let go of that need for the physical experience, we can send our dead loved ones thoughts and know that our loved ones receive these messages. We can even reconcile with someone who has died if we were not able to reconcile on earth.

I find that I don't need a tangible experience of my dead loved ones. I simply know that they hear what I think to them. And that's enough for me.

Hurricane Katrina: Deaths After the Hurricane

In the year after Hurricane Katrina, people died. Of course, people die all the time, but somehow these post-hurricane deaths became part of the whole trauma of Hurricane Katrina. The hurricane heightened the sadness of these deaths. In fact, these deaths loomed in our minds, certainly in mine. Here, I'd like to write about some of these post-hurricane deaths, plus two deaths that weren't exactly post-Hurricane Katrina but still seem related.

GAVIN MAHLIE. Gavin Mahlie's death affected me deeply. It still does. I didn't know Gavin personally, but he was my favorite New Orleans actor. I miss him. I had seen Gavin in many Shakespeare plays at the summer Shakespeare Festival at Tulane and in "Twelve Angry Men" at Le Petit Theatre du Vieux Carre and in other plays. I LOVED Gavin Mahlie, as did so many New Orleanians. Gavin was a prince of the theater, a down-to-earth, humble guy, dedicated to his craft. Gavin died in April 2006 in his sleep of heart problems at age forty-one. The whole city was shocked at Gavin's death. I write of Gavin's death with tears.

BATTLE BELL. Battle Bell was a well-known Jungian psychotherapist in New Orleans. I heard him speak several times at the New Orleans C. G. Jung Society. Battle also helped one of my friends greatly. My friend was going through a difficult family situation and had a series of vivid related dreams. She turned to Battle for dream interpretation work. Whether or not you believe that dreams have messages for us (I do), what happened with my friend is that she and Battle, using the dreams, worked out healthy ways to understand and respond to the family situation, which helped my friend a great deal. My friend remembers Battle with gratitude. Battle died in June 2006 of a stroke at age sixty-one.

CHEF AUSTIN LESLIE. Chef Austin Leslie was a beloved chef of New Orleans soul food. He was the chef at Pampy's Restaurant at the time of Hurricane Katrina and was especially famous for his fried chicken. My sister Maria loved Chef Leslie and his cooking. She was devastated by his death. Chef Leslie, at age seventy-one, was rescued from his home two days after Hurricane Katrina and died about a month later in Atlanta, Georgia. The very first jazz funeral to be held in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina was for Chef Leslie. I think New Orleans is still mourning for Chef Leslie.

JOE CASAMENTO. Joe Casamento was the son of the founder of Casamento's Restaurant on Magazine Street in New Orleans. Joe Casamento's father founded the restaurant in the early 1900s. Joe lived above the restaurant. Joe Casamento died at age eighty, immediately after Hurricane Katrina. In fact, I think he may have died right after or even during his evacuation. I grew up eating at Casamento's--always oyster stew or oyster loaf served on Casamento's special pan bread. Casamento's always closes for the summer, during the months without the letter "R": May, June, July, August. Once my mother, speaking in favor of the idea of having school year-round, said, "Now, really, do you know any other business that closes for the entire summer?" and my sister Janet immediately replied, "Casamento's." All New Orleans misses Joe.

MARY AND ERNEST HANSEN. Mary and Ernest Hansen operated Hansen's Sno-Bliz on Tchoupitoulas Street in New Orleans for over fifty years. Ernest invented the ice shaving machine that makes the most wonderful thin snowball ice, and Mary created the recipes for the many flavored syrups. I certainly ate my share of Hansen's snowballs as a child and teenager. Mary and Ernest Hansen were in their nineties at the time of Hurricane Katrina. Mary died in September 2005 and Ernest in March 2006. Their grand-daughter, Ashley Hansen, now runs Hansen's Sno-Bliz. Generations of New Orleanians grew up on Hansen's snowballs, and we miss Mary and Ernest Hansen.

PAM MURPHY. Pam Murphy was an all-around creative person, brimming with innovative ideas. A major theme of Pam's life was increasing people's self-esteem. She did a weekly local television show on self-esteem, created a board game to build self-esteem, and wrote a series of lively animal tales for children. For several years, I belonged to a small writers' group that met in Pam's home. Before moving to North Carolina in April 2006, I met Pam for lunch. I emailed Pam when I got settled in North Carolina and then sent her a Christmas card in December. Upon receiving the Christmas card, Pam's husband called me to say that Pam had died during the fall of 2006. She just got sick and died, her husband said. Pam's husband attributes Pam's death directly to post-hurricane stress.

BIG CHIEF TOOTIE MONTANA. Well, Big Chief Tootie Montana actually died in June 2005, two months before Hurricane Katrina. This was so close to the hurricane, and it was such a huge loss for New Orleans, that Tootie Montana's death gets connected with Hurricane Katrina in my mind. Big Chief Tootie Montana was the Chief of the Yellow Pocahontas Mardi Gras Indian Tribe, and he was also recognized as a kind of Father Chief by all the Mardi Gras Indian tribes. He died quite dramatically, speaking before the New Orleans City Council at a hearing about the way New Orleans police had interfered with and disrespected the Mardi Gras Indians during their St. Joseph's night march. I mean, Big Chief Tootie Montana actually fell to the floor in the middle of his speech. He had died of a heart attack. He was eighty-two. We all miss Big Chief Tootie Montana.

RUTHIE THE DUCK LADY. Okay, Ruthie the Duck Lady died well past Hurricane Katrina, actually at the time of Hurricane Gustav in 2008, but I want to include her anyway. Ruthie lived for years in the French Quarter, roller skating around, followed by her ducks. Everyone in New Orleans who ever went to the French Quarter knew Ruthie, or at least recognized her. At the time of Hurricane Gustav in 2008, Ruthie was living in a nursing home in New Orleans. My brother Michael lived in the same nursing home as Ruthie from 2003 to 2005 because of a stroke, and whenever I visited Michael, I also spoke with Ruthie. She'd be sitting on a couch in the lounge, surrounded by stuffed-animal ducks. Ruthie evacuated to Baton Rouge for Hurricane Gustav with the other residents of her nursing home, but she was ill and the evacuation was hard on her. She died in September 2008 in a Baton Rouge hospital at age seventy-four. I imagine her in heaven, reunited with all the ducks she loved over the years.

Hurricane Katrina: Why Didn't They Evacuate?

Why didn't they evacuate? A Category 5 hurricane? Massive? Heading straight for New Orleans? Why didn't they leave?

Many were too poor. They had no money. No credit card. No transportation. Nowhere to go. And they couldn't envision going outside the city. Such a thing was not part of their experience or their mental landscape. For their entire lives, their world was restricted to the neighborhood circumscribed by work, home, church, school. A trip across town was a rare adventure, maybe to see a doctor at Charity Hospital when the need arose. A trip to the state capital, Baton Rouge, seventy-five miles northwest of New Orleans, was unheard of--maybe like traveling to a foreign country.

This is hard to imagine for those of us who think nothing of hopping in a car and driving across the state or hopping on a plane and flying across the country. We are privileged. Many New Orleanians were not and had neither the means to enact nor the vision to imagine an evacuation. These were the ones who crowded into the Superdome and the Convention Center; who spent days in the stifling heat with no electricity and no plumbing, and in the case of the Convention Center, with no food and no water; who saw their infants and their grandparents die of exposure and dehydration right there on the sidewalk; who were finally, finally, after days of waiting, bussed out and taken to Texas or Arkansas or Georgia or Florida--or to Connecticut or Wisconsin or Minnesota or Utah--truly foreign territory with all the accompanying culture shock and disconnection.

But those with means--why didn't they evacuate? Many were elderly. They lived independently and got along well. They could manage their lives easily in their own homes, their own neighborhoods--where they knew all the folks, knew where everything was, had their routines. They knew they had slowed down with age, were no match for the young ones. But at home they didn't have to be. On evacuation, though--that was a different matter. Even if they went with family. Where would they be? How would they get their needs met? How would they know where anything was? Home had a strong sense of psychological safety that evacuation most decidedly did not. Besides, old timers had weathered many a hurricane at home. Home felt safe. These were the ones who died, trapped in their attics--of heat and dehydration--when the waters rose to the eaves.

But those who were younger. Why didn't they evacuate? Many were caring for ill, disabled, or elderly relatives at home. The logistics of evacuating with a person who may be bed-ridden, who may be incontinent, who may have dementia, who may have constant medical and physical needs that can be managed at home--but not on the road, not in bumper-to-bumper traffic inching along the interstate for hours on end, not in a strange motel or evacuation shelter in a distant city or town. No, the logistics of evacuating like that were overwhelming. Better to prepare the house well and stay at home. Among those were some who watched their ill or disabled or elderly relative drown, who simply could not maneuver their loved one up the stairs to the second floor or attic before the waters engulfed the first floor, who were left with a water-logged body to bury when the waters receded.

And others--why didn't they evacuate? Many stayed to care for their animals. One could evacuate with a small dog or a cat. But it's amazing how many people have several animals or large animals or unusual animals--like Jan with her brood of hens in the backyard, or Jim with his huge pig, or Lainey with her three dogs and five cats.

Lainey stayed with her animals, and although she lived in the crescent of land near the Mississippi River that didn't flood, she found in the days after the hurricane that conditions in New Orleans were such that she could not provide for those three dogs and five cats. So she loaded them into her station wagon and drove to her parents' home in Nebraska. She must have had to drive straight through. Where on earth could she stop for the night with three dogs and five cats?

I also think of Mary, rescued by boat from her roof and forced to leave her two elderly but still active dogs behind. Seeing a policeman she knew, Mary begged him to go and shoot her dogs, who would die quickly that way and not miss her and wonder why she didn't come and slowly starve to death in the flooded city. The policeman assured Mary that he would. Mary hopes that he did.

Many didn't evacuate for fear of looters--a very legitimate fear. Many of these actually believed in evacuation. The mother and children evacuated while the father stayed to guard the house, perhaps with a teenage son.

And then there were those who simply didn't believe that the hurricane would hit New Orleans--or if it did, that they could hunker down and be just fine when it passed. They were used to hurricanes headed toward New Orleans that always turned at the last minute and hit somewhere else. They may even have lived through Hurricane Betsy, which did hit New Orleans in 1965--and they stayed in the city then and did just fine. So they weren't going anywhere for Hurricane Katrina. And you know what? They were right. When Hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans, it was a Category 3 hurricane. Much of New Orleans was actually okay after Hurricane Katrina passed through. It was the breaches in the levees--levees that were supposed to withstand a Category 3 hurricane--that flooded the city, after the hurricane had passed. It was not the hurricane itself.

Hurricane Katrina: Refrigerators

Refrigerators were a huge problem in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina. When I evacuated to Chattanooga, I removed the food from my refrigerator, unplugged it, and propped the refrigerator door open. This seemed like common sense to me, but I know of only one other person who did this.

Most folks evacuated and left their refrigerators with all the food inside. What happened, of course, is that the electricity went out and stayed out. Food sat for weeks in stifling heat in the refrigerators of New Orleans--and molded and mildewed and rotted and stank.

Many people--the smart ones--simply didn't open that refrigerator. They sealed it with duct tape and put it on the curb for pick-up. Others did open their refrigerator--and immediately shut it, sealed it with duct tape, and put it on the curb. Then there were those who removed all the moldy stinking mess and scrubbed their refrigerator--and scrubbed it and scrubbed it and scrubbed it and scrubbed it and scrubbed it. And then scrubbed it some more--in vain. It was the rare person who managed to eliminate the stench. Most of those scrubbed refrigerators were completely unusable--the smell would not come out.

As a result, neighborhood streets were lined with refrigerators waiting for pick-up. Decorated refrigerators. New Orleans became a gallery of refrigerator art. Refrigerators with funny faces, monster faces, weepy faces.

Refrigerators with graffiti.

• Katrina stew
• Free gumbo
• Help yourself to gravy

Angry refrigerators.

• Katrina, I hate you
• FEMA sucks
• Go to hell, George W.

Sometimes we drove out of our way to look at particular refrigerators. I'd be driving somewhere with a friend, and one of us would say, "Hey, let's drive by that shark-face refrigerator on Pine Street--with the wide jaws and jagged teeth," or "Let's check out that refrigerator by Audubon Park--the one that's completely covered with political commentary."

My favorite refrigerator said, "Only a fool would open this--I was that fool."

You were supposed to put your refrigerator in front of your own house for pick-up. But some people didn't. Some people put their refrigerators in front of other people's houses or on street corners. These rogue refrigerators attracted others. In fact, it was amazing how refrigerators would congregate on a street corner. One day you'd see an odd refrigerator on the corner, and the next morning there'd be five more. They cropped up like mushrooms after rain.

Eventually--though it took months--all those refrigerators were removed from the neighborhood curbs. They went to Pontchartrain Boulevard--with all the other Hurricane Katrina trash and debris and ruined furniture. Pontchartrain Boulevard has a huge wide neutral ground, or median. The neutral ground is like a park, it's that wide. The Pontchartrain Boulevard neutral ground served as a colossal dumping ground after Hurricane Katrina--a looming pyre, over eight feet high, stretching from Veterans Boulevard to Lake Pontchartrain. Miles of towering trash on a park-wide strip of neutral ground.

But all that trash is gone now. Where? Where did it--and all those refrigerators--go?

Hurricane Katrina: Flooded Homes

The New Orleans to which I returned six weeks after Hurricane Katrina was not the New Orleans I had left.

I was fortunate, though, to live in the unflooded crescent of the city near the Mississippi River (the sliver on the river), so I returned to a relatively unscathed home--my second-floor apartment in an old New Orleans house on Napoleon Avenue. Each of our six apartment units had been broken into by the National Guard, and our front door had been spray-painted in code with their findings. Every house in the city carried these markings, which--if you knew how to decipher the code--indicated the name of the National Guard unit, the date of entry, the number of survivors found, and the number of dead bodies. Some houses carried actual spray-painted words: "1 white Manx cat taken to Winn-Dixie," or even "1 dead body."

Driving was hazardous and circuitous. Traffic lights didn't function and STOP signs were down, so we had to treat intersections as four-way stops. Flat tires were a constant threat because of glass in the streets. We could never count on driving a straight route from here to there, as we'd find the streets blocked by piles of debris or by work crews clearing it away. At night, we drove through a checker-board of lighted and darkened neighborhoods, depending on where electricity had and had not been restored. Twice, in a darkened area at night, I almost drove into a deep pond of stagnant water still sitting in an underpass--and stopped just in time.

Flies and fleas were everywhere--you couldn't get rid of them.

Damaged roofs were covered by blue tarps provided by FEMA. From the air, New Orleans became a sea of blue. But the tarp that covered my apartment behaved more like a sieve than a temporary roof. Until we got our permanent roof in March 2006, whenever it rained, water streamed into my living room, and I had to collect it in five buckets and empty those buckets frequently.

But all this was minor. Beyond the unflooded crescent where I lived, conditions deteriorated quickly. Every home beyond the crescent was encircled with a brown water-ring showing how high the waters had risen. The farther from the Mississippi River, the higher the water-ring. Out near Lake Pontchartrain, those water-rings were above the eaves.

What hurt me most was entering the flooded homes of friends. The home was distorted beyond recognition. Furniture had floated about the house and landed wherever it had floated to when the waters receded. The kitchen table, upside-down in the living room. An armchair, tilted on its side in the bathtub. It was as though a giant had picked up the house, shaken it, and plopped it down with all the contents scattered. The furniture and walls and floor were water-logged, buckled, and moldy. The stench was nauseating.

I learned that my love for my friends extends to their homes. To see a beloved home so horribly distorted shocked me. It was like seeing the mutilated face of a loved one after an injury. My shock, though, was small compared to the shock of the friend whose home it was. Like Yvonne.

I spent hours with Yvonne, a pianist, sorting through wet page after wet page of sheet music--her first pieces from childhood recitals, hand-written pieces she had composed, pieces she had played and loved and carefully annotated. We painstakingly separated the sheets and set them out to dry, salvaging most of the music. But Yvonne's baby grand piano--her musical companion of thirty years--was ruined.

One bright spot in the bleakness of sorting through Yvonne's soaked belongings came from her pantry. Canned food on the higher shelves was in fine condition, but Yvonne would be moving on to Missouri.

"Karen, could you use this food?"

"Sure! I know just how! I'll invite the Party Pals for dinner. We'll call it Yvonne's Pantry Party!"

The Party Pals are ten new Orleanians who celebrate our friendship through parties. And Yvonne's Pantry Party was a success! I prepared a meal with the pantry contents, and we telephoned Yvonne in the midst of the festivities to thank her.

Hurricane Katrina: Where Are My Loved Ones?

Monday, August 29, brings disturbing news. Hurricane Katrina has passed, but New Orleans is filling with water. Marcella and I watch the unfolding nightmare through the lens of the TV news reporters.

• Desperate people on rooftops awaiting rescue
• Loyal people refusing rescue if their cat or dog will be left behind
• Maverick boat people ferrying the stranded from flooded homes to helicopter pick-up
• Angry people shooting at the rescuers
• Weary people trudging out of the city
• Uniformed people forcing the weary back at gunpoint
• Dedicated people keeping patients alive in sweltering hospital hallways
• Critically ill people on blankets at the airport awaiting airlift
• Crowded people on overpasses with no food, water, shelter, or toilets
• Dead people in flooded beds, in lonely attics, on exposed sidewalks

A searing question burns in every evacuee's mind: What has happened to my loved ones who stayed in the city?

My brother Michael is one of those, though not by choice. In 2001, at age forty-nine, Michael suffered a severe stroke that left him physically and mentally impaired. Before Hurricane Katrina, he lived in a New Orleans nursing home with a prompt evacuation plan. But Michael did not evacuate with his nursing home. He suffered a seizure four days before the hurricane, was rushed to Touro Hospital, and was still hospitalized when Hurricane Katrina struck.

From Chattanooga, I telephone the staff of Michael's nursing home, evacuated to Baton Rouge with their residents. Naturally, they have no idea where Touro Hospital sent Michael. I check Touro Hospital's website and find a list of all the hospitals in the country where Touro patients have been sent. I call every one of them--even those with names like Women's and Children's Hospital. None has Michael. I list Michael as a missing patient and make my peace with the thought that death--should that be the case--will release my brother from his broken mind and body.

Meanwhile, my sister Maria, who has finally reached safety in Atlanta, asks a knowledgeable friend to conduct an Internet search for Michael. Three weeks later, Michael surfaces--at a nursing home in Houston.

The folks in Houston are delighted when I call. Michael arrived with exactly one piece of information--his name. The nursing home staff doesn't know whether his mental difficulties are caused by stroke, head injury, or psychosis. They are grateful for the details I can provide of Michael's medical history.

In October, my brother Danny and I, both newly returned to New Orleans, drive to Houston to see Michael. We have a favorable impression of the nursing home and Michael's adjustment. Until we can make other arrangements, Michael will stay in Houston. (As of August 2009, he's still there.)

P.S. Michael died in Houston on Wednesday, December 9, 2009. May he soar freely and joyfully in the world of spirit.