For we cannot help speaking about what we have seen and heard. - Acts 4:20 (NIV)
LITANY
We Will Repair the Breach: A Litany in Memoriam of the Anniversary of Hurricane Katrina On the Coast of the Gulf of Mexico, U.S.A.
Leader: The storms had names —Katrina, Rita, Wilma—but the faces of the storms were on every newscast —the underbelly of a nation's sin: our broken responsibility for the least among us.
People: We will repair the breach; we will raise the foundations again; we will restore the streets and make them livable again1.
Leader: They left trails of heartaches and tears, our houses and our hopes shattered.
People: We will repair the breach; we will raise the foundations again; we will restore the streets and make them livable again.
Leader: We saw the deaths: mostly poor, mostly very elderly, mostly very young, mostly people of color; as also we saw the scattering. Who will respond?
People: We will repair the breach; we will raise the foundations again; we will restore the streets and make them livable again.
Leader: Years of neglect floated up in the floods that followed, uncovered our shame as a nation.
People: And we are witnesses.
Leader: We vexed the poor and needy,2 robbing them of dignity and looting them of pride.
People: And we are witnesses.
Leader: Walk lightly in the streets where our kin have floated into history; the streets are sacred, as also are the memories.
People: We will honor the lives of the dead and the living by acting in justice.
Leader: Speak softly in the bars where our kin have disappeared; the music is holy, as also are the memories.
People: We will honor the lives of the dead and the living by acting in justice.
Leader: We have been charged to repair the walls, to stand in the gaping holes of our society; to cry out and to do justice.
People: We will repair the breach; we will raise the foundations again; we will restore the streets and make them livable again.
In Remembrance of the Natural and National Disasters that Hit the Gulf Coast and their Aftermaths
Prepared for the Samuel DeWitt Proctor Conference, Inc. by Valerie Bridgeman Davis, Ph.D., Assistant Professor of Old Testament/Homiletics and Worship, Memphis Theological Seminary, August 27,2006. ©2006
'Based on Isaiah 58:12 2Based on Ezekiel 22:29
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SAMUEL DEWITT PROCTOR CONFERENCE, INC.
773.548.6619 (v) 773.548-6699 (fax) Website: www.sdpconference.info Email: info@sdpconference.info
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