Chatty Cathy's Thousand Word Reply

My friend Anthony left a comment on my previous post asking a couple questions. When my response reached post length I decided to just put it up here! So with that said here's the comment and my reply.

Anthony says:

Ok, I’m a latecomer to this conversation, but thought I’d chime in anyway. I have no time to go finding a bunch of texts to buttress a position, so I will assume that we all share a common general knowledge of the same story. Anyway, I have two questions regarding Bret’s position, which may be completely right, I just have some questions.

1) Is God’s wrath passive — leaving us to the consequences of sin, but without active intervention on his part? “Passive wrath” sounds like an oxymoron.

2) Was the death of Christ necessary? Jesus prayed that the cup be taken from him if there was any other way. Did the Father say, “I could do it another way–but this one shows the depth of our love better than the others”? Or was there really no other way that we could be saved?

My reply:

Anthony,

Thanks for the comment/questions.

First, I wouldn't use the word passive. I for sure think that it goes too far to say that across the board God's response to sin is passive - though I think there is plenty of evidence to show that one response of God's wrath is choosing not to intervene.

We know that for those who consistently choose to live rebelliously God will give them over to their sinful desires...the result of believing a lie is living into that lie. Is that passive? I don’t know that passive is the best descriptor, but neither does it fit the view of vengeful God doling out punishment.

Also, as I pointed out in the previous post, Galatians 6:7-8 says "Do not be deceived, God cannot be mocked. A man reaps what he sows. The one who sows to please his sinful nature, from that nature will reap destruction; the one who sows to please the Spirit, from the Spirit will reap eternal life." I've heard it said here that God pours out his wrath on those who sow to please the sinful nature. However, it makes at least as much sense (and I honestly I believe it is more true to the text) to say that God allows us to reap the natural consequences of what we've worked to achieve.

In that way it does seem that the Wrath has a passive component - the wrath is the withholding of rescue that has been rejected.

I do not believe that God's only response to sin is passive/not responding and I don't know whether “passive wrath” is an oxymoron or not. However, at the risk of going more philosophical than anyone wants: if God is omnipotent, to choose NOT to act isn't really passive, it is a significant action.

In either case I believe that God's wrath, be it active or passive or some paradox of the two or something else entirely, is meant to be redemptive. And that leads to your other question.

Was the death of Christ necessary? I'm not sure if that's the right question for this conversation. I would say that Christ's death was necessary - just perhaps not for the reasons we've traditionally held. Taking your hypothetical God to Jesus statement "This one shows the depth of our love better than the others"

I’m not sure but I think you probably meant that as a tongue-in-cheek obviously wrong answer, but perhaps that “argument” would be more compelling for God than it is for us. The deepest display of love may in effect be “the only way” precisely because God IS the deepest display of love.

The question we’re really wrestling with here (or at least that I'm wrestling with) is whether the death of Christ was the only way for God’s irrevocable demand for justice to be satisfied. Or beyond that, is the satisfaction of God's righteous wrath and need for justice the crux of our salvation?

Perhaps we've too narrowly defined what it means to "be saved." Is our salvation merely the satisfaction of God's righteous anger? Who are the players in this drama? Is God the protagonist and humanity the antagonists? Or vice versa?

Are not sin, death and satan the true enemies? Is it possible that we, marred as we are by sin, have perhaps been held captive by the enemy or even foolishly (and often unknowingly) aligned ourselves with the enemy?

There is no other name in heaven or earth through which salvation is available than that of Jesus - this I fully affirm. To whatever degree that sins must be atoned for it is only through the incarnation, death and resurrection of Jesus that atonement is made possible. Whatever rescue is available, God has fulfilled it through Christ.

But I still contend that we devalue the true wonder, power and profound love/kindness (chesed) of God by placing such emphasis on penal substitution and God's inability to forgive any offense without the taking of a life.

Many brilliant folks through the years have put forth views of God’s justice and holiness which demand that he have satisfaction. My dissent is not to the position but the degree to which that position is held. I agree that God is righteous, holy and just. I’m not so sure I agree that God’s demand for justice outweighs all else. Why then should Jesus have taught us to turn the other cheek? Why then would Paul have said, “Why not rather be wronged? Why not rather be cheated?” (1 Cor. 6).

In a previous conversation the response to this was that God’s demand for justice is unavoidable but he shows his grace by sending Jesus as a scapegoat. Okay. That still leaves me with questions of why we then are commanded to forgive. “Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us.” Do we forgive those who trespass against us by demanding the death of an innocent?

I find little support for saying we are to forgive only once justice has been enacted. And I believe it is a cheap forgiveness indeed to say, “you can forgive them and move on because God’s going to punish them in the end.” There doesn’t seem to be any real forgiveness taking place there. And doesn’t that only work if they aren’t “saved”? Otherwise they avoid punishment - which then leads me to cry out for justice...which I apparently won’t get.

However, if the message is that through ultimate sacrifice we learn to have peace even when justice is denied...

When God incarnate makes the choice to NOT continue the cycle of vengeance and retribution (what if Israel and Palestine could get that concept??) When he willingly lays down his life rather than demanding the justice he deserved. When God made that choice he stepped into the middle of an unending cycle of sin and death and sent the whole thing spiraling in a new direction. Then justice was indeed served when Jesus rose from the dead, vindicated and glorified.

Perhaps our mistake is confusing the issue of satisfying God's wrathful requirement for justice with the issue of our salvation in Christ as though the two were synonymous. We've treated them as such but, again, just perhaps they aren't.

Perhaps there have been many things throughout history which have appeased God's wrath - sacrifice, repentance, a broken and contrite heart and faithfulness to name a few. But perhaps our salvation is about more than that. Perhaps our salvation, found only in the power of Christ, is the restoration of God's Kingdom; the defeat of the enemies of sin, death and satan; the healing of wounds; the end of death; our transformation into fully human creatures, once again bearing fully the image of God without blemish or scar. And perhaps wrapped up in that is indeed the appeasement of God's wrath...but its wrapped up in it, it isn't IT. Only the power of God could accomplish all that - there is no human effort or sacrifice possible beyond the fully human and fully divine sacrifice of Jesus himself.

Yes, I think that the death of Christ was necessary and I think it was much more valuable than just a penal substitution.

Anthony, I don't know if answered your questions or just used them to launch into another tirade.

If nothing else, I think its clear that I don't buy into the Calvinist/Reformed determinism theology. I've received a couple questions asking, since I'm obviously not very Augustinian/Calvinist in my persuasion do I consider myself Pelagian or Arminian or something else. Most of the 3 people who read this blog regularly either don't know or don't care what that means, but I will post a reply to that question in the near future.

So, This Story is Kinda Long...

I just finished 5 weeks of preaching at Christ Journey on the topic of Sabbath. My suspicion going into this series was that very few of us, particularly here in our faith community, really understand, appreciate or practice any type of Sabbath rhythm.

I think this suspicion was confirmed and (hopefully) overcome. Over the past month I’ve had people come to me and say, “I’m glad we did this, I never knew that Sabbath had anything at all to do with Christianity - I thought it was just an Old Testament thing like Passover or Kosher laws.” Another told me, “I was always taught that Sabbath was going to church and NOT GOING to movies or the mall on Sunday.”

What we spent this entire month considering were the ways in which a Sabbath rhythm could be cultivated (which basically means that we have an intentional time set aside each week to cease from work and the compulsion to produce and prove ourselves and instead embrace other things like rest, worship, feasting, remembering, celebrating and storytelling).

I admit fully that while I have a great affinity for the concept of Sabbath I am not always very good at practice. I can see the areas in my life that would be healthier and more satisfying were I to center myself in the practice of remembering God is God and I am not...but I do not do the thing I want to do and what I do not what to do, I do.

One concept which has come up quite a bit lately, through our Sabbath discussions as well as in other (seemingly) unrelated settings is the importance of story. Being good storytellers and story-hearers is important to our spiritual formation and it is also a reenactment of the Gospel of Jesus.

We discussed in a couple of the sermons that Sabbath itself is rooted in story - we are first introduced to Sabbath in the narrative of creation. It does not simply show up out of the blue in the middle of the Ten Commandments. In fact the command issued in Exodus 20 is to REMEMBER the Sabbath day. This story is formative.

Later when the Ten Commandments are retold to Israel in Deuteronomy 5 Sabbath is set within another story. Here the people are told to remember the Sabbath day as a way to remember that they were captives in Egypt and God rescued them and brought them to freedom. The Exodus story is central to understanding God’s relationship to humanity. We, the captives, cried out to God and he came near in order to set us free. He is not a God demanding constant production, like the Egyptian masters. He invites his people to rest in Him.

Jesus would later say that He came so that we might have life and have it to the fullest. He said, “Come to me all you who are weary and burdened and I will give you rest.”

The hearing and telling of these stories - our stories in scripture - is central to participation in the life of faith. But that isn’t where the importance of story ends.

In the midst of one of our worship gatherings we had an opportunity for several couples to share stories. They were asked to talk about how God had worked in their lives in the past or where they were hoping to see God at work in the future.

I thought it was a great moment for our family when one couple shared what they thought were two unrelated stories. However after they shared their two stories we helped them to reinterpret their story. In fact the two were so closely connected that it was quite powerful - one talking about the struggle to find balance between providing for his family and spending time with them and the other talking about her struggle to forgive a father that failed to maintain that very balance.

We are a community that tells, retells and sometimes, reinterprets stories. It is what we do because it is precisely what God has done for us. The story of human existence was one of brokenness and despair. Sin, unchecked, destroys life after life with no compassion or mercy. God in his greatness did not allow this story to define us forever. Instead he stepped into the story and began redeeming and reconciling the characters. Humanity and all creation are in the process of being healed and restored by the Great Storyteller who was not happy with this tale ending in tragedy.

Where there are chapters of brokenness, God is editing and rewriting to include restoration. Where there is pain, God writes in healing; where there is chaos, God speaks a narrative of peace.

We too have that ability. We are able to tell the story in a new light. This isn’t to say that we stick our head in the sand and pretend that everything is okay. No, we step into the midst of a story that says everything is doomed and proclaim that in fact, there is hope. (Which was part of what happened at Marvelous Light)



Paul stepped into the midst of total relativism in Athens (Acts 17) and said, “People of Athens! I see that in every way you are very religious. For as I walked around and looked carefully at your objects of worship, I even found an altar with this inscription: TO AN UNKNOWN GOD. So you are ignorant of the very thing you worship - and this is what I am going to proclaim to you.”

Paul was able to reinterpret this story for the Athenians because he was willing to enter into their story in the first place. Had he simply stood outside the Areopagus and denounced their idolatry he would have had no impact whatsoever.

I recently heard a Christian say that they were unable to participate in Christmas activities because December 25 was an ancient pagan holiday associated with the Winter Solstice and the practices of Christmas originate in the worship of Saturnalia and other pagan gods.

It may be jarring to learn for the first time that there were religious celebrations associated with winter and even December 25 prior to Christ. While this may be difficult if you didn’t know about it, it isn’t a great deception.

In (I believe) 350, Pope Julius declared that the celebration of the birth of Christ would take place on December 25. This happened when many pagans were being forced to convert to Christianity. The move, while certainly containing the risk of syncretism, retold this story - which was always one of hope.

And theirs was a good story. The worship may have been false, but the concept was one of hope in a higher power that could rescue humanity from the powers of nature which were so threatening.

In fact, the practice of bringing an evergreen tree into one’s home was meant as a reminder that life would return even though the harsh cold winter seemed an unstoppable ally of death.

And Christianity retold this story. “Yes” we were able to say, “there is hope in the darkest of times; yes we can look forward to resurrection of life from the dead - but not because we’ve properly coerced the pagan gods but rather because the One True God has become one of us in order to be life and light in this darkness.” In other words, “So you are ignorant of the very thing you worship - and this is what I am going to proclaim to you.”

Granted, the early church’s use of power and coercion was not something I believe to be Christlike. There were probably many pagans who simply used Christian language while maintaining their pagan beliefs - just as there are many Africans today who struggle with syncretism...and many Americans who baptize their consumerism and greed.

For Christians not to celebrate Christmas - at a time when the whole world is just a little more receptive to hearing the story of God coming near - seems to me to be a tragic missed opportunity to engage in this story. This story has been reinterpreted, retold and redeemed. For those who used (or use) the winter solstice to worship gods which are unable to actually save, we say, “Do not be afraid. We bring you good news of great joy that will be for all the people. Today in the town of David a Savior has been born to you; he is the Messiah, the Lord.” And because this story has been redeemed we can claim it as our story...because that it what it has become, it is a new creation!

I love the season of Advent - which is focused on anticipation of God coming near; the season of Christmas - which is focused on the arrival of our hope in the form of a Savior; the season of Easter - which is the fulfillment of our hope through the victory of Christ over sin and death. These seasons are filled with storytelling cues which can be incredibly powerful...and they can also prime the pump for the story to be told to those who’ve never heard.

I love the music, the decorations, the preparation for Christmas...there is no denying that something is happening. This story is just begging to not only be told, but to be experienced and entered into.

Now if we want to have a conversation about letting Christmas be an excuse to become self-centered materialists...well that’s an altogether different story.

Hermitage

A recent article in Discipleship Journal, titled “Drawn to the Desert,” caught my attention. Given the desert/wilderness theme that has been running through my head lately, the first line of this article had me hooked:

In my experience, when most Christians hear the words wilderness or desert in relation to their lives with God, thoughts of trials and testing come to mind.

What’s the purpose of desert/wilderness wandering? For Abraham it was the difficult path to discover his calling, for the Israelites it came as a consequence of their lack of faith, and for Jesus it allowed a time of testing. But for the Desert Fathers and Mothers; for the Monastics, going to the desert meant something different entirely.

In her article, Christy Tennant describes a time of spiritual desert in her life. “I felt empty, guilty, and hopeless in my attempts to be a living sacrifice…” In an attempt to reconnect with God and perhaps identify the source of her dry season, she set aside a morning to for solitude and prayer.

Tennant says that as she began reading she felt compelled to spend time in Song of Songs and to her surprise began to suspect that the purpose and cause of this season of desert was not the result of sin, or a period of trail to lead to greater growth and maturity – the Lord had called her to the desert to be alone with her.

He led me into the wilderness to clarify who I am in His eyes. He drew me to the desert so He could tell me how he feels about me. And he did.

The desert mystics retreated to this solitary – apparently barren – landscape and found instead the beautiful sound of silence, the lack of distractions, a chance to be alone with God.

Perhaps when we find ourselves in a desert season we should take time to speak with the Lord – even if it seems strange and foreign at first. Listen for stillness. It may be that the Lord wants to remind us that we were fearfully and wonderfully made. Maybe we’ve bought into the lie that we are filthy worms long enough and God wants to remind us that we were created in His image, that he chose us and called us. It could be that we’ve forgotten that Jesus said, “I no longer call you servants…I have called you friends.”

Then again, it may be that once we’ve waited out the wind, the earthquake and the fire the Lord will ask us, “What are you doing here?” And we’ll find ourselves being sent back to civilization, finally aware that we wandered out into the wilderness without being invited! But, hey…at least at that point you’ve been reassured of your mission.

Maybe we are called to the desert to learn how to pray in the first place. I don’t exactly come from a faith tradition that values hermits and monks living alone or in small cloisters in the desert. In fact more often than not monasteries are disdained as the ultimate symbol of selfishness and laziness. Over the past few years, I’ve come to a different understanding.

Many monasteries are open as a refuge to weary travelers. Many serve the poor. All are places of prayer. You see, here in America and in my faith tradition we apparently have a very limited view of what it means to serve and minister to others. We talk a lot about prayer and how powerful it is, how important and effective it is, how necessary a ministry…but someone dedicates their life to prayer and we call them selfish and uncommitted! So, do we think prayer is ministry or not?

Perhaps we are called to the desert to learn to do more than just talk to or at God, but rather to cultivate a listening heart that actually waits for a response. How often do we sit down to pray, through up a string of unending questions and requests and then when we finally have to stop talking long enough to take a breath, we look around and…Amen, peace I’m out.

We don’t have to be in solitude to pray, we don’t have to be in the desert to listen, but perhaps that’s a good place to learn. You don’t learn how to drive by getting into a car and immediately merging into rush hour traffic – but once you learn how to drive, you realize rush hour is just a really long parking lot, no big deal.

Maybe I’ve had way too small a view of the desert.

...Into the Wilderness

Remember the Normandy scene from Saving Private Ryan when the gates on the US transport ships were lowered and chaos erupted in an instant? Sometimes reality comes crashing in and people find themselves in the midst of an incredible trial with no warning or preparation.

Rookies in the NFL often talk about how much faster the game is compared to college. For those who make it and become a star, there is this magical moment – if you are an avid fan you can almost tell when it happens – when the game suddenly slows down. An event which yesterday, or even five minutes ago, was a blur of insanity and pain suddenly falls out of warp speed and operates in normal time or perhaps even slow motion. With the exception of freshman phenoms like LT or Adrian Peterson, everyone experiences this acclimation process – some go through it quickly and with ease while for others the transition is painstakingly slow, or never completes at all.

When I was in 6^th grade my math class was held in the room where 8^th grade Algebra met during the previous hour. I remember one day toward the end of the year I walked in and the Algebra teacher’s class notes were still up on the chalk board…yes we had chalk boards, with real chalk.

I looked at those unholy scribbles (letters or numbers people, choose one!) and knew that I would never comprehend that subject. There was no way that those ridiculous equations actually meant anything intelligible.

The next year I took pre-Algebra and the following year there I was…and it was easy! By easy, I of course mean that I hated it and never really got most of it, but I was able to pass my tests and move on. Yet looking ahead at the material, prior to being prepared it had seemed impossible.

Sometimes it is precisely the lack of preparation that makes a feat accomplishable. There have been times when I was hunting or camping that I came upon a difficult terrain at night. Not having a clue at all what I was trying to get over, across or through, I just trudged ahead and made it. When I returned in the light of day I could plainly see that there was no possible way to get through…I certainly wasn’t going to try to return the way I came, how could I? Yet the night before, not realizing it was impossible, I’d managed to cross with only minor difficulties (which suggests that perhaps we’re capable of much more than we realize).

When I think about the trials we face, these metaphors are somewhat helpful. In my previous post I talked about the difficulty of leaving the comfort of home for the wilderness only to turn around and find yourself leaving the comfort of the wilderness for the desert…so what’s next?

Sometimes we are blessed to go through the wilderness before the desert because we have an opportunity to begin getting acclimated or prepared rather than being thrown straight into chaos. The misery of Texas football two-a-days was somewhat less horrible for me and some others in our small town because we spent our summers in the hayfield instead of the air-conditioning. Those who went straight from (as our coaches would say) cartoons and Kool-Aid to 100 degrees and nearly 100% humidity had it pretty rough for the first couple weeks.

So I bless God for our time in the wilderness – it prepared us for the desert.

I mentioned before that when you enter the desert you have two basic choices for survival. The first is to find an oasis, which represents a place of rest and refreshment in the midst of the barren terrain. A blog shared with friends; a coffee shop where the barista knows your drink order; a new friend who enjoys hot wings and will allow discussion of the Dallas Cowboys in the midst of Black and Gold country…any of these can be an oasis.

Secondly, if there is no oasis, or if you just don’t know where to look, or even if you have managed to find one, you may need to discover or be discovered by Bedouins. Bedouins are native to the desert, they’ve learned to make their home in an environment that seems uninhabitable to outsiders…and if they don’t kill you, they can mean salvation! Your desert may come from moving into a new geographical location or it can be a purely spiritual desert, right at home. Either way, you will be blessed if you find people who understand this foreign terrain.

Locals who know the great places to eat, the great places to fish and the great places to launch your kayak that is currently sitting unused in the garage; people who can point out the things they love about their home turf can help you cultivate an appreciation for the landscape.

If your desert is spiritual it may be just as difficult to find your Bedouins. Even though you may be surrounded by people you’ve known for years, you may have no idea who’s been in the spiritual desert where you find yourself pitching your tent. But, trust me, they’re there. You just have to stay alert.

But there is another option besides dying in the desert that I wasn’t even thinking about until I read an article in Discipleship Journal – finding a hermitage or monastery. I’ll say more about that, and elaborate on another possible reason for desert/wilderness experiences in my next post.

The Unseen Destruction: A Shawshankian Culture of Victims

I heard recently that at least one poll lists The Shawshank Redemption as the second best movie of all times – behind (of course) The Godfather. I’m not sure whether I agree with that or not, though I will say that I didn’t immediately reject the notion.

I’ve seen some crazy things in Southern Louisiana. Doing insurance claims in Chalmette and the Lower 9th revealed the ridiculously destructive power of water. I’ve seen things that are indescribable – no special effects could do it justice. The cars on top of houses were not nearly as wild as seeing the house on top of a car in the middle of a street.

One of my roles here at Tammany Oaks is to help the volunteers process through what they’ve experienced. Even now, 10 months later, the destruction can be quite overwhelming. One person who was in New Orleans last week on a mission trip said, “Speaking as a follower of Christ, I found the whole thing nauseating and completely preventable. When I say nauseating, I mean it. Many people cry and weep when they see the destruction of the city. I got nauseous and pissed off.”

The truth is, and this is going to sound very strange, the destruction we are physically cleaning up is one of the easier types of disasters to address. Katrina ensured that no one in the Gulf Coast area would be able to deny that they had experienced a hurricane. That does not mean that it is easy to actually get the job done, if for no other reason than the sheer magnitude of destruction. Again, 10 months down the road does not really look like 10 months down the road here. However, people come from all over the country to help people reclaim their lives. There are the hippies who’ve set up the “Hippie Kitchen” in order to feed relief workers and residents. There are countless churches and volunteer groups giving up weekends and taking off work to come down and gut houses, clean parks, and listen to the stories of Katrina…stories which must be told and retold in order for healing to be a possibility. Still, I remind the volunteers that people in their hometowns are often hit with hurricanes which don’t leave such obvious destruction. These hurricanes do not attract national headlines nor do they bring in volunteers, funds or assistance of any kind. They just rot.

One reason it is important to help gut houses, even the ones that are going to be bulldozed, is that we have what is being called “bayou muck”, which as you can imagine is mixture of mud, water, mold and 100% Grade A, decaying nastiness. I’ve heard that we may have even bred a whole new strand of toxic mold here in New Orleans! The destruction is more than just debris, because this wreckage happens to be poisonous. But at least we can see where the wreckage is.

So many people live in homes infested with a bayou muck that is not visible. Anger, alcoholism, greed, divorce, abuse – these things may or may not sweep away all of your earthly possessions overnight. But there is real danger found in the decay. These toxic environments are made even more dangerous because they can often be hidden for months, years or even generations. All the while the inhabitants are being consistently poisoned.

While this is true wherever you may live – Thousand Oaks California, Dallas Texas or Omaha Nebraska – the high levels of “unseen” destruction here along the Gulf Coast are of epic proportions. I’m sure that I am not the first person to point this out, but the events of the last year have created a culture of victims, many of whom have little expectation, hope or intention of reclaiming “control” of their lives.

Red, Morgan Freeman’s character in The Shawshank Redemption, referred to this as becoming “institutionalized.” The walls of the Shawshank prison were initially despised, and then familiar and finally depended upon for the stability to survive. According the this theory of life, after years and years of oppression and bondage, a person loses the ability to live free.

I remember learning about something very similar in college. It seems that, as babies, circus elephants are shackled to a stake buried deep in the ground. The young elephant fights against its restraints but eventually realizes that there is no hope and gives up. Later, the full grown elephant is able to be restrained by a simple shackle attached to pretty much any stake – though it could drag a car down the road, it doesn’t even attempt to escape because it is convinced that there is no chance of freedom.

In Exodus we read of a people in a similar situation. Generations of Israelites had known nothing but slavery in Egypt. When delivered into freedom they immediately began longing for their former bondage. The Lord allowed an entire generation to die in the wilderness before the nation entered the Promised Land. Perhaps this was because the Victim Culture was simply too hardwired into their nature for these individuals to ever be able to function as members of a free society.

Fast forward to New Orleans in the year 2006. It seems that there are more and more people convinced that Katrina has destroyed all hope of freedom from bondage and oppression. It seems that many people are resigned to a new way of living. In Dallas we used to complain together that the plumber would tell you that he’d be there between 10 and 4 and he’d show up around 7. Yet here, people will make excuses for the plumber if he says he’ll be there between Monday and Friday and doesn’t show up until September. Don’t get me wrong, patience and understanding are good, but this is something else. It is the crippling belief that nothing good can happen anymore because of Katrina. You can see it in people’s eyes.

And then there are the Andy Dufresne’s of the world. There are people who don’t necessarily say much as they go about rebuilding – but if you talk to them you find out that hope is not something to avoid as dangerous. You find out that they are willing to take a beating or two in order to bring a glimpse of normal to their “co-workers”. You find out that there is, in fact, life after Shawshank.

The Victim Culture is growing like bayou mold, and I fear that it will prove to be much more difficult to get rid of. It has the ability to hide beneath the surface of a cleaned out residence. Accepting the role of victim is often a last ditch attempt at survival, and ironically it can be a death sentence in itself. If you are wondering what needs to be done for New Orleans as we approach the 1 year anniversary, it is this: pray against the Victim Culture, pray that the residents of the Gulf Coast region will not become institutionalized. Pray that hope will not be a word which is either scoffed at as a fairy tale or warned against as a danger.