Here’s Lookin At Hallelujah 2007 – St.Stephen’s Mission to UnBog New Orleans: The Blog
What difference does it make? We ARE the difference.Archive for Danny Kim
Thou Shalt Not Kill
I looked up the word murder in the dictionary. It might seem deranged, but I have a reason. “Put to death, destroy, wipe off, bump off” to name a few definitions. We can certainly argue that Hurricane Katrina murdered the city of New Orleans. Yet there was another culprit to this unsung crime. We are all guilty of allowing such a catastrophe to destroy a city, wipe off homes, bump off the citizens to other cities and states, and put to deaths at least thousands of lives. We knew well enough something like this was capable, but nothing was said or done. We knew that much help could have been provided even after the first strikes of the disaster, but still we paid no attention and moved on with our lives. Just as Katrina murdered New Orleans, we murdered our thoughts and memories of the disaster. Whatever I am saying right now is not anything new, but it is something worth being said everyday until we can recognize the problem and there are significant improvements.
Everyday there are murders that take place in places like Los Angeles that go untold. Because murders do happen everyday, they aren’t considered news. Well, we have a perfect opportunity with New Orleans to prove ourselves and the world that we are capable of recognizing each others’ problems. So in this sense, I completely disagree with Stalin and I say each death is a tragedy no matter one or thousands.
We’ve been given a second chance to save a city and many people from anymore murder. If we know it’s going on and don’t do anything about it, then we are just as guilty. So with this opportunity we can protect all that is important to us. What we are protecting is the bonds of human beings, the love and faith in each other, and hope that at the end of the day, we keep all things alive and last for eternity.
The New Era
My experience of the HYC event has brought many reflections upon me. When Michael said that the “marriage” of such a movement as HYC and our own youth group’s movement would prevail as the new age of Christian life it dawned on me what he exactly meant or at least what I think he meant.
The love that the participants of HYC had for each other and for God was very emotional and came straight from the hearts of all those teens. Yet the reason this love is so contained is because it is love without purpose. The love is not spreading because they have no place to take it farther. What we have is different. We too have some sort of love for each other and all of us at least love and have faith in our beliefs, Christian or not. We may not quite have as emotional or spiritual love as the youth of HYC, but we do have some sort of feelings for each other and our beliefs.
What is really important that HYC doesn’t have is a purpose. We made a pact with each other to take our beliefs and use them to make some sort of a difference, the one common belief being the rebuilding of New Orleans. We decided to make love spread by using that love to find Jesus in places and times in which his presence is most prevalent, places with the most devastation, places like New Orleans.
Therefore, if we can join the love of HYC and the mission of our youth group, the love that Jesus was talking about will be unstoppable and will spread like wildfire. That is what should be and will be the future of our group and hopefully the future of Christianity. That we have so much love amongst ourselves that we are not afraid of anything and that we have a direction in which this love can spread to change the world for the greater good. My dream is to see this happen to its success. To be able to stand up for ourselves and live freely and justly using that love that God has all graced us with. And I have complete faith in all of us to achieve that dream.
