On Religion: God, Man And Christmas In the Cane River Valley
(ANALYSIS) Christmas is a good news, bad news situation in Pensacola, a tiny community in the Cane River Valley, high in the mountains of North Carolina.
The good news is that Hurricane Helene’s flooding — which washed away almost everything at the town's crossroads — was followed by waves of volunteers and relief shipments from churches, nonprofits and businesses large and small. Most of the Laurel Branch Baptist Church survived, in part because a bus-sized RV was swept in front of the sanctuary, which diverted some of the raging floodwaters.
The bad news? While conditions are improving, many face Christmas in badly damaged houses, loaned mobile homes or worse. It's hard to put a Christmas tree inside a tent. And what happens if early snows and winds take out the patched-up power lines?
“We’ve got people giving us Christmas on top of Christmas on top of Christmas. That's not the issue. We appreciate the generosity, but we have problems that are bigger than presents under a tree,” said the Rev. Bradley Boone, pastor of Concord Baptist Church in nearby Burnsville.
That’s the seat of rugged Yancey County, the location of Mount Mitchell — the tallest peak east of the Mississippi River.
Pensacola is just one of many battered small towns along the matrix of rivers and creeks cut into the Blue Ridge and Great Smoky Mountains. Recent AccuWeather estimates for Helene damages have approached $250 billion. North Carolina lost at least 100 state bridges and more than 5,000 privately owned bridges.
The Boone roots run deep in the Cane River Valley:The pastor is in the seventh generation of a family tree topped by the legendary frontiersman Daniel Boone and his brothers. Pastor Boone is a veteran leader in the Pensacola Volunteer Fire Department, which was the hub for rescue work during and after Helene as well as the ongoing relief efforts.
Boone’s own home was damaged by one of the 2,000 landslides in the North Carolina mountains. The road to his house looked like it had been bombed.
Pensacola is part of my own story, since I have three decades of ties there with family, friends and neighbors. Our first trip back involved a tricky drive over a small, improvised bridge the locals built on the riverbanks, using planks of concrete from the fallen state bridge.
“What do people in Pensacola want for Christmas? Pretty much what everybody wants here in the mountains,” Boone said. “They want pavement on torn-up roads. They'd like to see some guardrails on the sharp turns next to the river. ...
“There is a strong sense of community here, more than you'll find, I think, in most parts of America. ... People have lived on this land generation after generation. They know each other, and there are strong ties, which have only gotten stronger after Helene.”
The mountain people are quick to help their neighbors. Some have had positive contact with FEMA workers, and some have not, said Boone. But everyone knows that “a $13,000 check from the government isn't going to replace your home. ... We're talking about people whose whole lives have been changed. They're trying to put everything back together again."
These days, people may fight back tears when someone drives past and yells, “Merry Christmas!”
They are steadfastly cheerful, even though it's “still hard to talk about the way things really are,” the pastor said.
“They don't like being helped. Honestly, it's kind of frustrating. They're independent. ... Most of the people here would give the shirt off their backs to a stranger, but then they really don't want to accept help. That's hard,” he said.
Churches are holding worship services, even if some have giant holes in the floors and the flood-soaked pews are drying outside. Boone's own congregation will have its traditional Christmas program and the usual drive to collect toys for needy children.
“People here are not mad at God,” he said. “If anything, they believe this thing should wake people up and make them realize how much they have to depend on God, no matter what.
“I see people leaning hard into their faith. ... Some are back in church, even if they had left for a while. Something like this can put you back on your knees.”
COPYRIGHT 2024 ANDREWS MCMEEL SYNDICATION
Terry Mattingly is Senior Fellow on Communications and Culture at Saint Constantine College in Houston. He lives in Elizabethton, Tennessee, and writes Rational Sheep, a Substack newsletter on faith and mass media.