From the 'Sent Mail': Clueless Christian radio types

From: The Mighty Favog
To: Listserve
Sent: Saturday, September 03, 2005 18:23
Subject: Re: [Listserve] Third Day (Katrina Mix)

>> Here's something I produced today you may be interested in airing to
>> support your on-air efforts to stay topical about the aftermath of
>> Katrina. It's the new Third Day single, with news and survivor soundbites
>> mixed in. Feel free to pass this link onto anyone else you think might be
>> interested in airing it.

All,


Being a native Louisianian watching beloved New Orleans destroyed and the Gulf Coast washed away, my emotions are pretty raw this week. Nevertheless, let me try to be delicate about this. I realize that folks are trying to be helpful, trying to be relevant and are doing so with good hearts.

But y'all have to realize that, sometimes, the proper reaction to great tragedy is not to hand out a tract. Sometimes, the proper reaction is merely compassion -- to suffer with, to enter into victims' Passion, their collective submersion into the sorrowful mystery of Christ's agony and death.

If nothing else, those trapped in New Orleans, those staring at empty lots where their oceanfront homes used to be, those whose homes have been crushed by venerable pines and oaks have been doing NOTHING BUT crying out to Jesus. As have both those natives who evacuated with only what could be stuffed into vehicles and those, like me, who moved away years ago.

This thing, this damnable hurricane, has been bad. Cataclysmic. Friday, U.S. Sen. David Vitter said his best guess was that 10,000 may have died IN NEW ORLEANS ALONE. The economic loss, according to preliminary estimates, will reach $100 BILLION.

We -- all Americans -- will see economic and political upheaval that we can barely begin to fathom at this point.

Tracts are insufficient. Only Christ's love, channeled through His people, and elbow grease is sufficient.

And if you really have to play a song, play one that has come to mean much to folks of the area: "Louisiana 1927" by Randy Newman. There have been wonderful covers, as well, by Marcia Ball and Aaron Neville. It's a song that hit many Louisianians where they lived even before this week.

Now it brings us to tears.


-- Favog