News

Gustav set the news media in hysterics yesterday. They flew their correspondents to various parts of the Gulf to keep a close watch on any "news" that could come about. Everyone's eyes were fixed on the levees in New Orleans for what seemed to be a hope of their destruction under the Hurricane's brutal force. Throughout the day the energy level of every reporter rose when something "big" was about to happen.

In one instance, Fox News had Geraldo Rivera screaming at the sighting of a person in the water. Geraldo got very excited about the scenario; however, his excitement was squelched when he realized that the man was equipped with a life jacket and a life-line. The man in the water was apparently doing his job when Geraldo became aware of him.

Toward the end of the day the vibe that the news anchors and reporters were giving off was one of failure. Watching them gave me the idea that somehow yesterday was a failure because Gustav did not leave in his wake destruction equal to that of Katrina, like, we made you a cake at least you could do is blow out the candles. All of this left me totally discouraged.

Now, I was not discouraged because Gustav did not live up to his potential as a hurricane, as it appeared the news media was. I was discouraged that the news media did not praise the fact that had Gustav been as bad as Katrina, most of the Gulf areas in Louisiana were evacuated successfully. I was discouraged that the levees, which have undergone major reconstruction since Katrina and held up to the fierce poundings of Gustav, were not a reason to rejoice, and applaud given to their engineers and the constructors. Basically, I was pretty upset that instead of making the fact that huge lessons were learned from Katrina news, everybody was sort of hoping for another storm of mass destruction.

The real "news" yesterday, was not the destruction that did not happen. The real news was that Katrina taught us a whole lot, and because of that we are not in the same turmoil we were three years ago. All of which is a very fitting analogy to how life works. We mess up and there is a lot of destruction. We learn our lesson, don't mess up, and there is a lot of nothing: no stress, no headache, no heartbreak, no loss.

As I think about it, God created us to have no stress, headache, heartbreak, loss. Only through our failures did we obtain those treasures in life. When Eve and Adam ate of the fruit, their bite gave us all much more than a belly full of sweetness. Their bite brought upon us a default of failure, which equates to a default of hurt and labor and tears and pain and on and on and on the list of woes goes.

We know that Gustav's arrival was less than interesting. After the correct preparations were made watching Fox news became painfully boring, but for all of the people who slept in peace and safety, for all of those who will have a home to arrive back to, for all of those who wont be ridiculed for poor engineering, for a country that is not twisted against itself the failure to be destructive because of the victory of learning lessons seems worth it all.