Unity in faith can combat the nation's appalling initial inaction in the face of the devastation of Hurricane Katrina, speakers said at a Tuesday night candlelight vigil for victims of the storm.
The bells in University Hall rang for five minutes to call people to the small gathering in front of Faunce House.
"Tonight as a nation we stand as a web broken," said the Rev. Janet Cooper Nelson, the University chaplain. The "failed responsiveness" of authorities and of the American people revealed Americans' "inability to be the people we promise each other we will be," she said.
"It will never be that one among us vulnerable is forgotten as long as we are people of integrity," she continued. "It is not possible to grasp the suffering our neighbors are experiencing. ... We will not only not forget, we will act."
Cooper Nelson told The Herald before the vigil that students had been coming to her office requesting some sort of ceremony for the victims. "That restlessness in the human soul to respond in need is the greatest, to my mind, confirmation of the holy," she said.
The Rev. Henry Bodah read a passage from the New Testament and the peace prayer of St. Francis and was followed by Rabbi Serena Eisenberg '87, who spoke of the vulnerability of the idea of home.
A student then blew the shofar, a ram's horn traditionally used in Jewish ceremonies.
"We're told that the sound of the shofar recalls the sobs of a mother mourning the death of her children," Eisenberg said. She called on the student body to "awaken to a greater sense of power" upon hearing the horn.
Cooper Nelson took the microphone to close the ceremony with a challenge. "Across the South, children are gone - children in their 90s, and children newly born." She called the students assembled to action, asking, "Who are you? What will you live for? What will matter to you?"
"I take great courage from your faces and your commitment," she concluded. "This family of Brown will raise our hands, raise our lives and find a new commitment."
The Rev. Dr. Allen Callahan then led the group in a hymn, saying, "They're singing this in the South. I'm not down there, but I know they're singing it."
"Those are the hymns that we sing in the South," said Leigh Anna Dwyer '09, wiping away tears. "Where I live in Shreveport is five hours north of New Orleans."
"It helped a little to see that people are thinking about it. I'm not really religious, I guess I'm agnostic," she told The Herald. "I just feel lucky that all of my friends and my family are okay."
Tod Edgerton GS described his reaction to the storm's damage as too much to handle. "I don't even think I can articulate it," he said.
"(New Orleans) is as much my home as (Providence) where I grew up," he said. "I'm in mourning."
Other students were moved by President Ruth Simmons' speech at Convocation. Philip Burns '09 said her speech was why he attended the vigil. "(There is) a terrible indifference to the hurricane," he said.
Simmons attended the vigil, comforting students such as Dwyer. Other students came merely to express shock.
"Despite our advances in technology, we couldn't help hundreds," said Lea Mouallem '08.
"Besides donating money it's hard to do anything," said Sara Walter '09, adding that "standing together in quiet reflection" added to her sense of unity.
"We are a multi-faith team," Cooper Nelson told The Herald before the vigil began. "Every chaplain brings a thought."
Cooper Nelson also pointed out the stains left on the steps leading up to Faunce. These stains were left by wax candles for various other vigils, including the one after Sept. 11. She called them "the evidence of common mark."
"(Vigils) make the sacred very near and very ordinary," she said. "It's our way. It's not a common prayer tradition, and I wouldn't say we need one," she added, citing the "strengths of shared effort."
