Oneness

There’s a feeling we had on this day seventeen years ago that we hadn’t felt three days earlier. There was compassion, hurt, worry, also resolve. And more than anything there was a sense of oneness. A sense that we are all Americans now. Party didn’t matter. Ethnicity didn’t matter. People around the world stood with us—not looking down on us, or pitying us, but loving us and standing alongside us in our time of distress.

Flag in the aftermath 9-11-2018
image from NBC News

There’s a feeling we had a year ago in Houston last year, after the 50+-inch deluge that came with Hurricane Harvey. Neighbors helped neighbors. And everyone was our neighbor. People came in from well outside Houston. The Cajun Navy, as they came to be called, were neighbors with boats that set out from Louisiana to bring their small fishing boats to help rescue flood victims. People fed one another, and housed one another. Sometimes long term, since it took from several months to more than a year to get many homes back to habitable—some are still not. People helped each other muck out the debris, and clean, and dry out, and then begin the rebuild. People gave of their time and money.

Nobody asked, before offering help, “Are you part of my tribe?” No one cared about race, ethnicity, religion, political party. We were all people. We were all Houstonians. Even people from far outside the city, and even beyond the country’s borders.

My friends Derrick and Gloria, after Harvey (their 3rd flood)
The photo is his.

Right now there’s a disaster about to hit the southern east coast, aiming at Georgia and the Carolinas. More than a million have been evacuated. Sometimes these things turn out to be less than predicted, but sometimes—as we know around here—the worst case scenario shows up. So right now we’re all sending our prayers that direction. I heard there was a call for the Cajun Navy to re-deploy. Again, no one will be asking whether those in need are of a particular tribe: color, party, ideology. We’re all Americans, all humans, pulling together for those of us in harm’s way.

radar screen shot from CBS News

Can we agree that the oneness we feel under these circumstances is a good thing? I’m assuming if you’re reading this, you’re civilized enough to believe this is true.

We know how to get the unity: suffer a calamity.

What we need to know is how to get the unity without the calamity.

I don’t know the answer. Well, not true. I do know. Choose life in the freedom, prosperity, and civilization zones. Live by the rules that get us there. Do it individually, and then share your ways with the next generation, and with your larger circle of influence.

So, individually choose ultimate good: that’s the way to move from the fragmented, tribal culture that is making us simultaneously less unified and less individual. Persuading people—many people persuaded one by one—to choose ultimate good, that’s the challenge. I’m not sure how we’ll accomplish that.

But, in my personal, very small crusade toward that end, here’s a review of the ways to get ourselves up into freedom, prosperity, and civilization, according to the Spherical Model.

Into Freedom, Out of Tyranny

The Political Sphere

·         Keep government limited to the proper role of government: protection of life, liberty, and property.

·         Ask these questions:

o   Is the policy being debated something that an individual has the right to do, and therefore has the right to delegate to his/her government?

o   Does the policy infringe in any way on the rights enumerated in the Bill of Rights?

Into Prosperity, Out of Poverty

We’re born naked, impoverished, and inexperienced. It is by growth, hard work, and gaining in expertise that we try to overcome this condition throughout our life. We are born with the right to life, the right to live free (not enslaved), and the right to pursue our own path to overcome the naked impoverished state.

The Economic Sphere

Prosperity comes when we are free to work, build our wealth (the results of work beyond subsistence), and choose how to spend the results of our work. In short, we need a free market. Not a crony capitalist economy. Not a highly regulated economy with government favoring various players. Not an economy of monopolies. But a true free market.

Policies should always be guaranteeing the right to enjoy the fruits of your labor.

Prosperity is tightly tied to civilization. Because we need people acting honestly, people who are trustworthy.

And we also need generous people who are willing to help those who cannot help themselves.

So the answer to prosperity is a free market—which is the engine for creation of wealth—combined with philanthropy.

Into Civilization, Out of Savagery

Civilization requires a critical mass of people living the laws of civilization. These are simple but not easy things:

·         A religious people.

·         Strong families.

The religion we’re talking about is fairly broad and free. We need to believe that God is our creator, and we are held accountable to Him for how we live our life. He has provided a moral code that we are bound to follow.

The Social Sphere

The moral code is identified in the Ten Commandments, among other places: honor God, family, life, truth, and property.

These laws can be lived individually. But the smallest unit of civilization—living among civilized people—is the family. So we need to clarify what valuing family looks like.

Religious freedom is required for civilization. God is essential, because He is the giver of rights. Anything excluding God limits our rights to whatever the person or entity chooses to grant.

Civilized societies value family as the most important and basic unit of governance. Alternatively, a hallmark of totalitarian regimes, which are savage, is the replacement of the family with the state. Totalitarianism resents loyalty to any societal unit other than itself. And it is this absolute weakness that will always prevent a totalitarian state from offering true Civilization as you’d find it in a free strong-family society.

We have a lot of evidence, from thousands of years of history, to show that strong families, and hence strong civilizations, do not happen without protecting marriage: a man and woman committed and exclusive for life, raising their own children. Such families allow civilization to perpetuate, against the strong pull of chaos and tyranny.

So, if we’re going to be united, without being compelled by catastrophe, we need to do it by being a people who love freedom, prosperity, and civilization, and willingly live the laws that get us there.

One Month Later

Hurricane Harvey made landfall near Corpus Christi on August 25^th, and made its way north to Houston August 26^th, beginning the biggest flooding event in recorded US history. That was one month ago today. So I took a drive, camera in hand, to see how things look now, compared to that crazy day.

Today’s post is mostly a photo essay.

There aren’t any hills in Houston. We use overpasses and skyscrapers for views. So when you see a little hill like this one, you know it’s not natural. This is the Addicks Reservoir Dam, not far from the spillway. Most of the time, it’s just part of the road.

Clay Road runs over Addicks Reservoir Dam

Addicks Dam south of the spillway

Eldridge Parkway goes through the reservoir. During heavy rain, it floods, and they close it. This has happened maybe a dozen times in the nearly 20 years we’ve lived here. It’s part of the plan. It was closed until a few days ago. There’s still water in the reservoir that hasn’t drained yet.

Eldridge Parkway, running through the reservoir, is finally open,
but there's still a lot of water alongside the road.

Bear Creek Park is the alter ego of the reservoir. Our kids used to play baseball here. There are soccer fields, camping areas, playground equipment, a lot of forest primeval, and other things you’d expect in a park. That’s how we make use of the space between floods. It has probably been out of commission for an entire month several times. We don’t know how much longer it will still be water instead of playground.

The road through Bear Creek Park is closed
while the park is serving as the reservoir.

Bear Creek Village was one of the worst hit neighborhoods. For those who think people shouldn’t be building in flood zones, understand that this neighborhood is 40-60 years old. They probably thought they’d never flood. But it turns out, when the reservoir fills up with 800-year flood waters, they do flood.

It took quite a while to get the water out so the mucking out could be done. Finally now the debris removal is underway. You can see the heavy equipment at work, and some really big trucks.

Debris removal is underway in Bear Creek Villages

There’s still a lot of debris to pick up.

Sometimes you see stacks of furniture, like this, that remind you there was a live family that lost all of this.

The post office I usually use is being rebuilt.

Bear Creek Post office before
(Photo from Melissa Willis)

Bear Creek Post Office
reconstruction underway

Closer to my house, you can see more lawn scars—the places where the debris sat before getting picked up. Some houses are marked with a C or an H. I believe those were put there by rescuers. I haven’t been able to learn what they stand for. Maybe “clear” and “hazard.” I’m not sure. I'm not sure how they remove them either. But that's a minor detail by comparison with rebuilding the home's interior.

In my neighborhood, I was able to do a few side-by-side comparisons.

After the mucking out.

Same corner after debris removal. Dusty, but looking near normal.

The street the boats went down to rescue people is clear and dry again.

Where boats launched to do rescues into the neighborhood.

Dry again, and looking pretty good.

This was our entrance underwater, and back to normal now.

Our entrance, once the heavy rains stopped. It was underwater
for about a week. That means those homes were underwater that long too.

Back to serving as a road again. You can't even tell.

The Mormon Helping Hands were still out this past weekend, but we're reaching the end of mucking out. Unfortunately, homes that haven't been able to do that yet may be a total loss. The church where I play music with friends once a week is back to normal today; a week ago it still had refugees sleeping in the sanctuary, and a dog refugee room somewhere at the back (we could hear them). That was a long time for a church to be used. Schools are open, and students have been reassigned to new schools as needed.

So Houston lives on. The streets were designed to flood, as backup waterways when the bayous are too full. There’s a lot of engineering that helps this city handle massive amounts of rainfall. But when several feet (not just inches) come down all at once, even this system is overwhelmed.

What’s amazing, really, is how well the water was handled, how few lives were lost. And most important was how neighbors, from near and far, helped one another. Which needs to keep happening for some time yet.

There are a few areas that might not be rebuilt. And there are plenty of places still in the midst of cleanup—way before restoration. But what’s surprising is how much has returned to normal for most of Houston, and how much hope there is that most of us will have our lives rebuilt eventually.

We feel blessed here. So many people showed they cared about us.

Meanwhile, we’re watching the devastation in Puerto Rico from Hurricane Maria. We know a missionary there, who was flown out today, along with a hundred or so others. They had been working hard there, but  The island is in desperate need. there wasn't enough food, clean water, or housing for them. They had stayed in the mission office during the storm, packed in together. Most of them were unable to return to their apartments, so they lost all their belongings beyond the change of clothes with them.

There's no electricity. Spotty communication. Transportation difficulties. Prayers and aid need to go their direction next. That's what good people do for one another.