Learning to help

Post Hurricane Helene

Hello from a café near downtown Hendersonville, where I have wifi and an outlet to charge my computer. It’s been a weird week, and I am grieving for my beautiful state, but Will and I are safe, and our house is completely fine.

We still don’t have power, but we are one of the last in our area, so we’re hoping today is the day.

It’s overwhelming to think of the ways people’s lives changed instantly with a mudslide or a fallen tree, or possibly more slowly, over a number of days, as it became clear that the help they needed wouldn’t get there in time. Two nights ago, I became almost hysterical with the idea that there could be someone near me who needed something desperately that it was well within my power to provide – something that would be easy for me to remedy, if only I knew the need.

The next day, following the wise example of friends, Will and I knocked on our closest neighbors’ doors and, occasionally using Google Translate to overcome the language barrier, just asked them if they were okay. There were some things we could do that were easy and useful, and we were glad we asked.

I’ve been helping with unloading supplies at a church near my house, and one day I rode on a church bus down to Edneyville to deliver donations to a food pantry. We stocked a shed outside where the food waited to be shelved, and then I wandered inside the main building. It was small and plain but neatly organized, the food arranged with care, so it looked like a pleasant little shop. I heard from the priest that the people who ran it were concerned – they had about 130 regular families, in normal times, who cleared the shelves, but they hadn’t yet seen many of them. They wondered if they had left town, or if they were trapped somewhere.

It's always true – that’s the thing – that someone near you needs something desperately that it would be well within your power to provide. A crisis like this just brings that knowledge to a decibel it’s hard to ignore. And there have been people, all along, who chose not to ignore that knowledge, who stocked their shelves neatly and waited for the regulars to arrive. They chose a way – simple, sustainable, and practical – to be of help. They took that responsibility upon themselves.

Yesterday, both of us a bit unsettled by everything and seeking some kind of comfort, Will and I went to a service at the church where I’d been helping. The priest, David, who we know from regular, non-hurricane life (his wife is a doctor with Will, and they both play on our softball team) joked that he had gone off script for the week – the Episcopal lectionary (the calendar that tells you what scripture to read during a particular service) had provided, for that Sunday, some verses on the topic of divorce. “There was no way,” he said, “that I was going to preach about divorce.” He preached instead about the miracle of the loaves and the fishes, a story in which the disciples were tasked with feeding a crowd of 5,000 with very little food. David said that before this week, he wouldn’t have been able to say, exactly, how that particular miracle happened, but now he thought he knew. Once the disciples understood it was their responsibility (they asked to send the people away, but Jesus said, No, you feed them) they pooled their resources and discovered they had more than enough – there was food left over. It had been well within their power, all along.