The many forms of trauma ...

Titus, that post, on the world without religion, was staggeringly well composed with its rapid machine gun fire list. Combined with its brevity I think it is one of the best posts this site has ever hosted. Good form man, really well done. And I mean that with all sincerity. It just levels the pompous self righteousness, "I'm just a little more clever then you because I don't believe in God", demeanor that permeates every bastardized pore of those whom feel compelled not just to minus religion from their own lives, but the lives of all in the public square. A stake through their heart, if you will.

On Katrina trauma ... we rode the storm out 2 hours north of Biloxi white sand, and it was brutal (albeit nothing like the Old Testament wrath Titus faced in his home), but mine is of a different brand. My wife had moved out and was living in a brick condo one block from the beach. And after "they" would allow us back down (the sate police, National Guard, Long Beach PD, fire and rescue, the sheriff deputies - take your pick) by showing your license and that you had residence South of the tracks, we went down (we got there maybe 7 or 10 days, maybe more I can't remember, after hit day). She and I went to the site where her condo was (a side note, she had moved out but we were still legally married and supposedly trying to "work it out", thus we rode the storm out together). I was stunned at the level of devastation. No homes or structures south of the tracks, just a mangled mesh of debris consisting of homes, clothes, cars, every possession imaginable, bulldozed like snow to the edges of the road making "debris walls" 8 to 10 feet high. It was literally like a great blanket of debris had fallen and a plow had been employed to create these rat mazes of roads to navigate in and out. Anyway, we recovered perhaps a laundry basket worth of goods. She had taken with her (from our family home which survived with damage), most of our family pictures. Miraculously some survived and we collected them amidst the flattened residence (and I mean, it was GONE), but with all the damage one would imagine: barely intact figures, make out a face or two amidst the water stains and cuts. So, to this day, when I see a damaged picture, be it ours in the closet or on TV, etc, I flash to the heart sickening feeling that my family was coming apart. The damaged photos of us seemed to capture, tragically, exactly what was happening to us ... torn, tattered, barely recognizable from its once pristine condition. Fortunately for me, and only by the grace of God, the shudder I get upon viewing any such photo is dispelled the very next moment ... when I smile, realizing we were able to fix what was most broken ... us ... and make new pictures, together.