Dear Christ Church,
Every so often, tragedy strikes to such a degree that we realize we have no ready or adequate response. As I am writing this, the death toll from this past weekend’s flooding surpassed 100 people, including many children, 27 of whom were either counselors or campers at Camp Mystic. Like many of you, our staff and clergy have been heartbroken and overwhelmed by this tragedy, and have fallen to our knees, crying out to Immanuel – “God with us” – in our suffering and grief.
We are especially heartbroken for those Christ Church parishioners with ties to Camp Mystic and the families of the girls missing or deceased. Please keep these folks in your prayers as the Holy Spirit brings them to mind. Reflecting on the sudden, unexpected death of his spouse, C.S. Lewis wrote in A Grief Observed,
“Grief is like a long valley, a winding valley where any bend may reveal a totally new landscape.”
These parishioners have a long and winding valley in front of them. For those that know them, when appropriate, enter into the valley alongside them. For those that don’t, please hold them in your prayers.
All of us, by one degree or another, are connected to others outside of our parish who have lost loved ones. If you need to meet with someone pastorally, please get in touch with me (michael@christchurchofaustin.org). I would be honored to hold this grief and pray with you.
I want to invite you to the following along with our friends at Immanuel and COTC (thanks to Tish and Jonathan Warren for taking the lead on crafting the following):
- PRAY: Continue to pray for those who are unaccounted for to be found. Pray for miracles. Pray for those who have been on the front lines and who are still taking up the heroic work of rescue. Pray for so many families and young people who have experienced profound trauma. Pray for the leaders of Kerrville, Hunt, and the surrounding areas. Pray for churches in Kerrville and surrounding areas that have lost people and who are trying to respond as they can, and for all churches in Central Texas as we seek to come alongside those suffering anguish and devastation. You might want to use this prayer from the Book of Common Prayer to frame your own petitions:
Almighty God, by your Word you laid the foundations of the earth, set the bounds of the sea, and still the wind and waves. Surround us with your grace and peace, and preserve us through flood and natural disaster. By your Spirit, lift up those who have fallen, strengthen those who work to rescue or rebuild, and fill
us with the hope of your new creation; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
- ACT: Austin Disaster Relief Network (ADRN) is an organization comprised of volunteers from over 200 Austin area churches responding to catastrophic events in central Texas. You can find out about ADRN’s efforts to respond to the floods and get involved here. Some parishioners from Christ Church will be aiding with clean-up efforts this Saturday, July 13th. If you would like to join in relief efforts this (or an upcoming) Saturday, please let me know by emailing Carolyn Roman at carolyn@christchurchofaustin.org.
Anglican Relief and Development Fund (ARDF) is also responding to the crisis. You can support ARDF’s financially here or by joining volunteer efforts here.
Here are a few other options from the H.E.B. foundation:
- The Kerr County Flood Relief Fund of the Community Foundation of the Texas Hill Country. This is a well-known and trustworthy group—they will distribute funds to many other regional nonprofits.
- TEXSAR: Texas Search and Rescue. This organization is doing vital rescue work and needs ongoing support.
- The Salvation Army – Emergency Disaster Services. Be sure to direct your donation to the Texas Floods.
- GREIVE: Fr. Jonathan and Mo. Tish Warren recently wrote “In the face of such unspeakable grief, it is sometimes hard to know how to approach God in prayer or how to respond in conversations with others about this tragedy. We may feel immense sorrow, bewilderment, and anger in reckoning with the fact that only a few of those who were swept away by these floods were rescued, or that so many of those lost were children. I want to remind us all that God wants us to come to him with our hard questions and emotions. Lament is a form of prayer that brings grief and hope, agony and trust, faith and doubt together before God. It is a way of holding the promises of God in one hand and the pain of human experience in the other. I invite you to grieve and to make space for your grief, even as we hope in the one who, even now, is making all things new.
The Psalms are the surest way to pattern our laments. Kelly Coleman observed in her recent sermon that lament Psalms have the structure of “orientation-disorientation-reorientation.” When we are experiencing a profound lack of fit between what we profess about Jesus’s restoration of all things and our present experiences, we can take a corporate lament like Psalm 80, or an individual lament like Psalm 31 and pray it with our own feelings of disorientation in mind as we pray. This is a critical way in which as disciples we hold the tension between the already of Christ’s redemption and not yet of living in what Origen called ‘this place of tears’.”
A Christ Church parishioner with strong ties to camp mystic and several of the campers affected, sent the following image along with this note: “The Mystic girls we have been praying for did not make it. But this painting gives me comfort. My dear friend in Dallas says they are running through the clean waters of baptism.”
Amen, come Lord Jesus.
Grace and peace,
Dcn. Michael
Christ Church
Associate Rector