At the writing of this entry I have completed my second day of flood relief work at the River Plantation neighbohood in Bellevue, Tennessse (suburb of Nashville), and I am worn out! I am working through a disaster relief organization called Service International. They have organized and directed volunteers throughout various flood damaged areas in Middle Tennessee. River Plantation had anywhere from 6 inches to 7 feet of water in its homes. I have been placed in work crews consisting of 80 the first day (including a Presbyterian youth group from Nebraska) and about 30 the second day. The homes have already been "mucked out" (meaning gutted - just studs remain) with basically all the contents of the family dumped uncerimoniously just outside their door. Our job each day is to move the piles from the yard out to the street so that bobcats (mini bulldozers) can push the trash into big piles where larger equipment places it in dump trucks to be carted off. So for the last two days, I have basically been a garbage man. We have moved SO MUCH trash in these two days, and yet SO MUCH MORE is still to be cleaned up here and all over Middle Tennessee. 
The fellowship and camaraderie with other volunteers has been fantastic. We work well together and actually have a lot of fun despite the hot conditions, dirty labor, and sometimes overwhelming smells. One thing that has been particularly hard is the emotional toll this work takes on you. We are basically going through people's lives as we load their earthly possessions into wheel barrows. Clothes, kitchen supplies, furniture, toys, books, diplomas, awards, family pictures, Bibles all ruined and all heading to the dump. The sheer volume of the piles makes it easy to begin to "depersonalize" this work, but then the most random item will pull you back to the fact that real people are really hurting and have lost so very much. One such item was a framed cross-stich prayer that I found in a "trash" pile this morning. After finding it, several volunteers and I decided it needed to be pardoned from the pile, so we found a sunny spot and propped it up to let it dry and so other volunteers could see it.
The prayer sums up much of what I wish I would remember to pray for myself each day. It also is a painfully appropriate prayer for the victims of this flood.
God grant me the serenity
to accept the things I cannot change;
courage to change the things I can;
and wisdom to know the difference.
Living one day at a time;
Enjoying one moment at a time;
Accepting hardships as the pathway to peace;
Taking, as He did, this sinful world
as it is, not as I would have it;
Trusting that He will make all things right
Trusting that He will make all things right
if I surrender to His Will;
That I may be reasonably happy in this life
and supremely happy with Him
Forever in the next.
Amen.
Amen.
--Reinhold Niebuhr
-MRB
