At this very moment, I was scheduled to be on a plane to Iceland.  Except I’m sitting on a couch in the Miller’s home writing this.

As  I walked through the days after my second flood in less than two years, a place of joy  was anticipating the trip my friend and I had planned several months ago to go again to Iceland.

The last time I went to Iceland, it was only weeks after the Tax Day Flood.  My friend, whose home is in Georgia, had been visiting me when during that storm and had gone through the flooding with me. In Iceland we found healing and beauty and rest.

We planned this return trip to Iceland sitting on the couches of the Cuellars’ home, my temporary housing this past year.  We would go to the places we hadn’t visited the last time, and we would celebrate my return home to the beautifully restored Rectory.

Then Hurricane Harvey changed everything.

In the days after the flooding, I began to replace items destroyed by five feet high flood waters.  I quickly ordered a new coat, suitcase, art supplies, and shoes to replace those destroyed in this second flood, and I had them delivered to my friend in Georgia since mail service was uncertain in Houston.

Then Hurricane Irma began it’s own destructive path. Weather projections placed its route through Georgia about the time we were scheduled to fly out of Atlanta.

This morning, after a day and night of Irma’s torrential rain and roaring winds in the Georgia mountains, my friend has awakened to downed trees, blocked roads, and no electricity.   Even though Irma has passed, it is not likely she could have made it to the airport.  Thankfully on Sunday we had been able to change our travel plans and are on a flight to Iceland on Thursday.

With two extra days in Houston, I can continue to  prepare to move into my new temporary house.   I’ll have two extra days to make sure things are well in the parish before I leave.

God has brought me in safety to this new day.  The birds are singing.  I’ve had coffee and eaten breakfast while enjoying the hospitality of friends.  Soon I will get in a car generously loaned to me by still other friends and go to a job that I love. I have hope and possibilities and resources beyond measure.

There is a prayer from the New Zealand Prayer Book that Rev. Katie+ prayed during a Facebook Live worship.  It’s a prayer that we can all hold on to in the midst of the changes and chances of this life.

God of the present moment,                                                                                                            God who in Jesus stills the storm
And soothes the frantic heart;
                                                                                                        Bring hope and courage to all people in uncertainty,
                                                                  Bring hope that you will make us the equal of whatever lies ahead.                                      Bring us courage to endure what cannot be avoided, for your will is health and wholeness;  

You are God, and we need you.
       AMEN                                                                                             

 

 

 

And so it begins again.

Thursday, we were able to get back into to the Rectory via a make shift bridge over a gully. A group of two adults and three teenagers began the reclamation process of St. Mary’s rectory.

Thanks to the hard work of a group of parishioners early this past Sunday morning, all of my furniture except a couch was safely upstairs.   Many other of my personal items had been carried upstairs or placed on counters which we thought would be high enough to avoid flood waters.  I’d placed a few important clothes on the top shelf of my closet.  Strong folks had put my car up on risers.

We had been as prepared as we could be.  But we were not expecting five feet of water to enter my home.

This time, many of my personal items, everything we thought was safely placed on counters and in closets, were taken by flood waters.    These were things perhaps most important to me which I had kept downstairs to be near when I moved back home this summer. Things I thought had been made safe, but this second time around didn’t make it through the flood.  These were things that had less financial value but ever so much more heart value.

When people say they have lost “just stuff”, it is true.  It’s important to know, however, that each item of stuff holds a memory–some small, some very, very large.

Remember that.  Every memory will need a moment to have it’s time of grief and a word of good bye.

Remember that if you are someone who has lost precious items.  They represent a part of your life that you must grieve.

Remember that if you are one of the extraordinary people who is helping to clean out ravaged homes.  Each item tossed in the front yard or placed in a garbage bag or put in a dumpster is a little good bye for the person you are caring for.  When you drive by people’s homes with their front yard covered in what to untrained eyes appears as trash and refuse, remember what that is was once not trash or refuse.  It represents a life.

For me, it’s a tote bag of yarn.  The tote bag was given to me to hold my knitting by a man in a shop on the Isle of Iona.  It contained a scarf I was knitting as a memory of my trip to Iceland.

Another  tote bag that was given to me as a souvenir of the Four Voices concert in June.  A famed photograph of my father and me.  A framed photograph of my extended family at Thanksgiving.  A water color of a priest baptizing people in a river.

Over four hundred books.  Books written by my daughter and my father.  Books given to me by friends and family.  Books I use to write sermons and to prepare for ministry.  Most of my cookbooks.  The Bible given to me at my ordinations.

Art created by my grandchildren.  The plants I’d saved and restored after the last flood.

The monetary value is small.  The heart value is beyond measure.

This is what you or the people you love have lost.

It’s just stuff.  Indeed.  But it’s stuff tied back to a place in their heart.  My heart.  Your heart.

Yes, we are alive.  Thanks be to God.  Yes, much can be replaced.  For people like me, of resources and privilege.

But there are heart wounds that will take time, much time to heal.

 

 

 

 

Today I wake up in yet another new home.

Yesterday morning, we awakened to water in the home where I had evacuated the day before.  We prayed about what to do, and decided that we would stay put.  First responders were telling folks not to evacuate unless they were in danger; the support structure was already strained nearly to the limit.

With internet and electricity, coffee and good companionship, I was able to stay connected with the parish, praying Morning Prayer via Facebook live, not once but twice, because there had been some confusion about when we were actually going to pray the Office–being able to pray is always a good thing.

By noonday, the septic tank in the Akards’ home was no longer working, and trees began to fall in the back yard taking down the power lines.  That was when we decided that we were no longer safe.  Carrying out a very large dog, two cats, and provisions through the flooded drive way to my friend’s Subaru, we were able to drive out; somehow, the road was still passable.  A block later, we were surprised to find houses above water and the road clear.  Such a mystery of flowing water.

Charting our way north via a phone map that told us where roads would be flooded, with only one incident of high water, we were able to drive to Fairfield subdivision, where my friends and I separated with goodbye hugs to our new homes.

The youngest son of my new host family had kindly cleared out his room for me to use–“because it has a private bath.”

For the third time in a little over a year, I find my temporary home being a child’s room.

Showered and filled with a warm bowl of homemade soup, we gathered around the family’s dining room table at 5 PM for Holy Eucharist.  Neighbors joined us, and we were eleven celebrating the Lord’s meal.  Via the gift of internet, close to 4,000 people celebrated Communion together.

Today is another day.

Shortly I’ll go back to the dining room table and pray Noonday Prayer with my host family and our internet community.

Our Curate, Alan’s+, internet is out and water is rising near his home.  He is with his wife and two very delightful and active sons, and he has their safety in mind.  Still he continues to coordinate relief efforts for our parish via his phone with limited cell coverage.  He provides pastoral care from afar.

Our Senior Warden traveled through flood waters to serve with relief efforts at the church.  His wife, who is in the midst of cancer treatment, came to my house and helped move items to safety. Their special needs daughter has just received a diagnosis of a syndrome with a terminal outcome.   Yet they continue to serve others.

I am deeply moved by the generosity of people who are no longer strangers but companions in the way.  Story after story after story about how God works through people, whether they know they are doing God’s work or not.

People who never pray are praying.  I’ve been pondering the twenty-four prayer vigil that is going on right now.  A vigil God may have been calling us to for some time now, and to which we have finally said yes.

These are ways that God is active and responding and working through terrible disaster.

Good morning God, this is your day.  I am your child.  Please show me your way.  

 

When we saw that the roads were unsafe for travel to church for worship today, our Curate, Alan+, and I decided to livestream the Office via St. Mary’s Facebook pages.

While Alan+ was praying Morning Prayer via Facebook at eight, I was joined by parishioners at the Rectory who had come to help me finish moving as many belongings as possible upstairs.  Cypress Creek had flooded again, and waters were rising closer and closer to home.

In a couple of hours, the house was as prepared as it could be, and wearing my pretty turquoise boots, a gift from a friend during the Tax Day Flood a year ago, we hiked out through a neighbor’s yard to dryer ground.

At noon, I put on my collar and prayed Noonday prayers from the dining room table of dear parishioners, the Akard, who have offered me hospitality.

At five, Alan+ prayed Evening Prayer, and at eight, we ended the day back at the Akards’ table praying Compline.  John, an acolyte at St. Mary’s, lit a candle.  We prayed one of my favorite prayers, from the New Zealand Prayer Book:

Lord,
it is night.

The night is for stillness.
Let us be still in the presence of God.

It is night after a long day.
What has been done has been done;
what has not been done has not been done;
let it be.

The night is dark.
Let our fears of the darkness of the world and of our own lives
rest in you.

The night is quiet.
Let the quietness of your peace enfold us,
all dear to us,
and all who have no peace.

The night heralds the dawn.
Let us look expectantly to a new day,
new joys,
new possibilities.

In your name we pray.
Amen.

My neighbor has reported that water has indeed entered the Rectory, already at a level a few inches higher than the Tax Day Flood.  It continues to rain.  We pray for unexpected joy and possibility tomorrow.

May the Lord Almighty grant us a peaceful night and a perfect end.  AMEN