When I was asked to write a column reflecting on the tenth anniversary of Katrina and the subsequent levee breaches, my first reaction was that someone else should do it — a New Orleans native, or someone who works on local issues, or even someone who lost more than I did. All of us who lived in the area, though, were affected, all of us were exiled, all of us had losses. And there are those who say that all of us are to this day just a little bonkers as a result.

At the time I tried to explain to distant friends that everything they read, heard, and saw was true — all the good stuff, all the bad.

Loyola students were taken in for the fall semester by over 400 other colleges and universities, all over the U.S. and beyond. Similarly, children from Louisiana and Mississippi attended schools at communities across the country. My niece told me of New Orleans area students in her high school, and some of you can probably tell similar stories from your childhood, whether you were the exile or the host.

The forced entry into new communities for some, who may never have been out of Louisiana, at first seemed even to open up new insights — say the fact that in some parts of the country, public schools can work. There was great hope for real change when we all returned, but in too many ways that promise has still not been realized.

So our story is for me a kind of paradox: great recovery and even improvement, but at the same time, myriad lingering problems. I haven’t experienced anything quite like that elsewhere.

At least I hadn’t until an immersion trip to the Dominican Republic earlier this month. I was asked to write this column while on the way to Santiago, so perhaps inevitably what I saw there has colored how I approached the task. The juxtaposition of good and bad, poverty and generosity, and the power of the human spirit even in circumstances that would seem to put it at risk, was surprisingly similar to me.

With my colleagues (faculty and administrators from other Jesuit universities), we thought about what the Jesuits call consolation and desolation — if you prefer, think of the presence or absence of God, or of the uniquely human spark.

As one of our group noted, in some ways, consolations and desolations are sides of the same coin. Difficulties can force us to question what we thought we knew and to find a new path through the seemingly intractable road before us.

When I look back on both the aftermath of the storm and my immersion trip, what I see most of all is a challenge, to do what can be done, even if it doesn’t seem to be enough, and to allow ourselves and our communities to be changed in unforeseen ways.