The City With a Servant’s Heart

We here in Nashville are in crisis, there can be no doubt. Some of us (like myself) are barely affected personally, but the city we love is in trouble and it hurts all of our hearts. Our landmarks are flooded, our pristine and sacred places, both new and old, are no longer pristine at all. We tear up when we see water on the Opry stage, devastation in the Cascades, and mud caked in all of those areas where the water has finally begun to recede.  We are tempted to lament all of these things that make our city special. I submit to you, Nashville, that these are not the things that make our city what it is.

There has been a sense here for the last few days that the world has forgotten us. National media have barely covered what to us is a disaster of barely fathomable proportions and we are getting zero acknowledgement from the federal government. Others have written about this, doing everything from begging for attention to stating boldly that Nashville does not need national attention or federal money. We’ll take care of ourselves. In a situation this dire, this large, none of us can afford to let our pride push away assistance, but this is my home, and I know exactly the sentiment that prompts these thoughts. You see, we here in Nashville may not be able to take care of ourselves, not when we’re in this kind of trouble, but we know we will take care of each other. It’s in our history, in our community, in the way we live our lives every day. Nashville has a servant’s heart.

Nashville isn’t about being a fan of the Predators. It’s buying tickets to a game you can’t attend because you know we need the sell-out. It isn’t loving country music. It’s supporting local bands in local venues and dropping a ten in the tip jar because these kids look kind of hungry. It isn’t even about loving thy neighbor as thyself. It’s about dealing with your neighbor’s needs and stopping to figure out your own later.

This weekend, Nashville was about rescues and communication and shelter for those who lost their homes, businesses, and family members. From civilians who happen to own boats pulling people off their roofs to others wading out to stranded cars to help carry children, to NES workers trying to rescue a man clinging to a tree, we saw everyday run-of-the-mill Tennessee heroism in each news broadcast.

This week, Nashville is about so much more: recovering and rebuilding, even as those rescues continue. Our Clear Channel radio stations got together today to raise money for the Red Cross. Jack FM, known for not taking requests, sold requests this morning for $25 for flood relief. Nashville not only played along and gave money, but kept its sense of humor and found a brief moment of levity, for some probably the only levity of the day (the requested song that accompanied my commute was Milli Vanilli’s Blame it on the Rain). Last I checked, more than 8300 volunteers had signed up with Hands on Nashville to work in many different capacities around the city. Belmont University has given its employees three days of paid time off to do volunteer work. The Red Cross has shelters running in every town that’s been affected – only in Nashville would you have both pet-friendly and no-pet shelters so that the pet owners and the allergy sufferers don’t inconvenience each other! One of my students, concerned about parents who don’t have a clean water supply for mixing formula, has offered up her stash of pumped breast milk. Harris Teeter is giving away bottled water in Franklin and in Davidson County. A woman named Heather on the radio this morning suggested that professional caregivers who have extra space offer it to displaced persons in need of that care, and she started with her own home. This is the short list of efforts going on all around us, and still the outside world barely notices. But that’s okay. We are who and what we are even when no one is watching.

Every year the Nashville Scene host its “You Are So Nashville If” contest, full of inside jokes. Some are funny and some aren’t, but that’s hardly the point. My point is that today, you are so Nashville if you know that the Opryland Hotel can be rebuilt, LP field can be made ready for play before the season starts, the Schermerhorn can be repaired, and that our city will pull together and make it right, given sufficient time. You are so Nashville if you know that our stuff may be soaked, but what makes Nashville the city that we love isn’t even damp.

P.S. You are also so Nashville if your first thought when hearing that Opry Mills was flooded was that maybe they’ll just tear it down and rebuild Opryland. Or if you saw poor adorable Charlie Neese draw a penis on the weather map and assumed he was just tired and stressed, not trying to be funny. Or if you heard Ghost Ballet fell over but you had to call a coworker over to look at it because you couldn’t really tell a difference.

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