Serenity Prayer

Puzzling how two weeks of your life can fly by in such a crazy-quilt pattern of events. I have evacuated my home, taking only the barest of possessions, and awaited news of whether my entire community survived the onslaughts of a massive storm. I have returned to find life livable, home intact, and the community not harmed nearly as much as I had feared. I have received news of the death of two long time friends and officiated their memorial services.

I have preached good news to my congregation and sat in on meetings coordinating the relief efforts necessary for responding to a disaster of Ike’s scope. Volunteers from across the state (soon from around the country) spread their cots and air mattresses in our church chapel. They have come with trailers, mobile shower and laundry units, chainsaws and expertise in mud out work in flooded homes.

Our parking lot is home to a Red Cross POD handing out water, cleaning supplies, and food. Our playground is now Camp Ike as volunteers from UBC are providing a quickly organized day camp for more than a hundred kids a day who are still out of school while their parents are returning to work.

Tonight I visited with my college roommate, who is one of the BOI (Born on the Island) people from Galveston. He pastors a congregation in Jamaica Beach on the west end of the island. Their church building still stands, but the community around it is decimated. One home was destroyed when a barge hit it. His own home, not far from 61st Street, had more than six feet of water in it. He and his wife will go back to see it for the first time tomorrow. Then they’ll have to figure out what to do next.

I have helped unload Red Cross supplies off a truck in the parking lot of FBC, Seabrook, whose building flooded from the storm surge. I spoke to people driving through the POD line for food and water and heard them express their confidence that they would make it through all this. Afterwards I drove through the streets of the surrounding neighborhood where I saw every home emptied of its surge soaked possessions.

Meanwhile the world goes on. Our president and his advisors are trying to stave off an economic meltdown with $700 billion of our money. Wall Street swings back and forth like a traffic signal in a hurricane wind. Political candidates attempt to persuade us that our country would be better off if they were in leadership. I’m not persuaded.

The storm winds are not all physical. After the measurable gusts have past, others still blow through our lives. These are times when life really is a day at a time kind of thing. It unfolds. I suspect it will have this quality for some months to come.

The “Serenity Prayer” has long been a friend of mine. I like the longer, full version of it, that goes a bit beyond the one often quoted:

God grant me the serenity
to accept the things I cannot change,
Courage to change the things I can,
And wisdom to know the difference

Living one day at a time
Enjoying one moment at a time
Accepting hardships as the pathway to peace
Taking, as He did, this sinful world as it is,
Not as I would have it

Trusting that He will make all things right
If I surrender to his will
That I may be reasonably happy in this life
and supremely happy in the next. AMEN