Originally uploaded by chaesq.

You know, it's a strange thing to think and feel and say, but it is my truth: it's not even the pictures of the dead bodies floating in the water, or the dead body slumped over and covered by a blanket in a wheelchair, or the crowd gathered weeping around an old woman dying before their eyes, or the increasingly vacant faces of young children who will only remember desperation and hopelessness, or the eerily and evilly gleeful and defiant smiles upon the faces of opportunistic looters and thieves. These images of the tragedy in my South stir me, sure, and they make me weep and make my heart burst with despair and anger and rage and helplessness.

But nothing shatters my heart as much as the sight of countryman turning a gun on a countryman. My people bearing up arms against each other. What is the meaning of this? How are we to understand this, comprehend it, absorb it? How am I not to be shocked into immobility at this sight, unthinkable even five days ago? I am not naive; I know that violence abounds. I know that crime is rampant and that people are sinful and that hate and greed and selfishness are strong powers. I know all this, and I know more than this. But what kind of person would I be if I did not pause before this image, to grieve not just for the dead, the washed away, the homeless, the hungry ... but now, also for a country and the people who make up this tableau and hundreds more like it: countryman against countryman, both driven by desperation and fear, with no respite in sight, with no hopeful motive to recompense for the evil?

And now I read reports that victims in New Orleans are bitter, saying that our government, our military, is quicker to respond to other areas in the world than they are to respond to our own local regions. They are saying that no one in this country cares about them, that we don't care about sending relief or rescue or buses or aid or food or water.

NO! NO! NO! NO!

If you can read this, if you can hear me, if you can hear any of us, then know this: WE ARE DYING INSIDE, JUST AS YOU ARE. Not a day goes by that I and my friends do not shed tears for you. Not a night goes by that I close my eyes and do not see the horrific images second-hand that you see horribly first-hand. Not a moment goes by that I don't wish that I had wings to fly to you and superhuman strength to lift you out and endless resources to restore you. Not a second of the clock ticks that I don't want to run to the nearest news source in the vain hope that I hear good news. NOT A SINGLE MOMENT, DO YOU HEAR ME?

My God, if you knew how badly we were trying to reach you. If you knew how we weep when we gather to pray for you. If you knew how we are pouring out the contents of our pockets, wallets, bank accounts, to give you the flimsy bills inside. If you knew how we fall to our knees and beseech He who created you and who will sustain you, to just throw you a lifeline. If you knew how intimately we are connected, and how we refuse to break the connection. If you only knew.

I beg you, do not give in. I beg you, don't let go. I beg you, grasp the thin line of hope. We're coming, we really are, I swear it to you.