Spiritual moments of truth come, according to Proverbs, “when panic strikes you like a storm, and of your calamity comes like a whirlwind, when distress and anguish come upon you” (1:27). Catastrophe is not the end of the story, however. According to Proverbs, the storm and the whirlwind, distress, and anguish, are God’s opportunity to make God’s words known, God’s will clear. That makes New Orleans one spiritually happening place, a Petrie dish of God’s revelation. It isn’t just New Orleans, of course, but the aftermath of devastation in Louisiana is where I have seen it myself.
The storm at issue, though, was not Ida but Katrina. God’s words were brought home to me by a dear friend, the late Charles Jenkins, who was the Bishop of Louisiana sixteen years ago when Katrina struck, the anniversary of which Ida ironically reminded us of. I’m sad about losing Charles for many reasons. One is that I am sure Charles could have had some valuable counsel about God and Ida.
Charles never failed to make me laugh. He could tell jokes about his native Cajun culture perhaps best not repeated. He was a good companion for dinner. He knew a fine bottle of wine and many a fine New Orleans restaurant. I think of him as dapper. He was meticulous about his appearance, both in grooming and attire.
He was a graduate of Nashotah House, which gave him a distinctly Anglo-Catholic and generally conservative perspective on theological issues. He was a Southerner, which gave a generally conservative perspective on social issues, including many that came to the fore among the leaders of the Episcopal Church in his day. He was not, either theologically or socially, what we would today describe as “progressive,” but that is only because he was not sure the causes of the day might be more regressive than progressive. He had a good heart, the best, but he looked at the issues of the day from a point of view a little to the right.
The House of Bishops met not long after Katrina struck and Charles, as he would do, made a Herculean effort to attend. So Herculean, in fact, that he arrived without his normal meticulous attention to his appearance. I had never before seen him disheveled. He was in bad need of a haircut. Both my wife and I expressed concern to him. He said there was not yet a barbershop open in New Orleans. As a small way to express our care for him, we arranged for him to get a haircut in the hotel where the bishops were staying before we all left to go home. Charles had clearly experienced the storm and the whirlwind.
There was more going on than an uncharacteristic lack of attention to grooming details. From Katrina on, Charles became a powerful voice, especially among bishops, for defeating racism. It’s not that he had ever been for racism, of course. It’s just that he had never seen its effects quite so clearly as when laid bare by Katrina. As the mostly black residents of the Ninth Ward struggled, were displaced at first temporarily and then more permanently, Charles saw, I think for the first time, that the cards were stacked against black residents of his beloved New Orleans. What he saw became a powerful incentive to speak and to act.
Charles’ words made God’s words known in a new way and were a powerful instrument of God’s will in the world to be paid attention to. He was a light in post-Katrina New Orleans. He was a light to me. He was a light in the storm and whirlwind. He was a light worth being guided by. Charles was never a stranger to love, but he became a witness to love acting, at some personal cost, in a way I had not known him to be before. Charles is the epitome of why New Orleans is a spiritually happening place.
Agape,
+Stacy
Bishop Stacy Sauls
Founder and President