I have not neglected my prayer time, just my prayer blog. I apologize for not posting for a couple of days. But instead of posts on the Daily Office readings, for a few days going forward I am going to post some thoughts about Katrina, with the 10th anniversary looming on Saturday and a named storm out THERE with my current location right dead center of the “cone of uncertainty”, I think it’s appropriate.
For those of you who weren’t part of St. Patrick’s, I want you, REALLY WANT YOU, to read the words I am linking to below. It is a reflection by my friend Bruce Colville, who discovered us at Camp Coast Care and moved from volunteer to staff, lending his heart to us in life changing ways. Bruce, as you will see, is a brilliant writer and captures our first anniversary of Katrina service so well, far better than I could.
Let me set the stage, then encourage you to follow the link. Our church sat right on the beach highway (Beach Blvd or Highway 90), four lanes of concrete that seperated the church building from the man-made sand beach and the Gulf of Mexico. The church occupied the front part of about 8 beautiful acres of land. Behind the church was a creek and across the creek was St. Patrick’s Park, which the church had allowed the city to maintain as a green space. There was a walking track and a baseball practice field, and at the north end were two buildings where we housed our youth ministers and where our youth group met. The park was shady and beautiful and included an outdoor chapel – a few benches (pews) and an altar under the trees.
On the first anniversary we gathered at the outdoor chapel. Across the creek, we could see where the church buildings once stood, now covered in nature’s green, only the footings remianing. Sunday the 27th we gathered there, joined by our Bishop, Duncan Gray III, my deacon, Lynne Hough, and I led worship which included baptism of two children (as Bruce says, of course, baptism – let’s reclaim water as a sacrament instead of a destructive force) and Eucharist and also healing prayers with the laying on of hands and annointing with oil by myself and the Bishop. It is a day I will never forget.
Would you do me the favor of clicking the link and reading Bruce’s words? Then let me know in the comments what thoughts are triggered by them.
God bless and thank you. Here is the LINK.
It is powerful to read this beautifully written account of the service one year after Katrina. I think that those of us who didn’t live through it can only “see dimly”, but his descriptions of what the congregation sees/hears/does reveal the extent of the healing needed and how hard won each step of that healing is, for nature and for people.
A whole year later with so much of the recovery still to come, in that service with baptism and communion “… something changes. Reality, the helplessness of past and present, is incontrovertibly altered. God intervenes.
David, Thank you for sharing this link. Your friend’s evocation of that special servce was poetic in its diction and inspiring in the spiritual depth and feeling of his evocation of the regenerative power of the sacraments of Baptism and Eucharist. I have been moved these pasr few days by Jennifer’s stories and by your recaling of that time of terrible pain and incredible generosity and courage.
All was washed away and all will become new.
This was also what the blood of our Lord enables us to do.
I can feel the never-forgotten sense of loss and pain that surrounded Katrina, that devastating event ten years ago. Although I was not in the “eye of the storm,” it impacted all of us. Today I am devastated by the news out of Roanoke so these words captured my attention. “If we can find Jesus in these moments…..” To survive these horrific events, we must search,we must seek and we must find our Lord, Our Savior, Jesus Christ.
Thanks for letting me know – I have corrected the link.
I’m not sure the link it to Bruce’s words. Perhaps you might check it. However, if it is the right link, then it should be obvious that St. Paul’s has a wonderful sense of humor which fits well with you as our interim.