We’ve had to learn new phrases, new vocabulary to talk about our tragedy.
Unprecedented
Catastrophic
Extinction
We’ve reached for words to match its awfulness
We’ve renamed days too:
Red Tuesday (1898)
Ash Wednesday (1983)
Black Thursday (1851)
Black Friday (1939)
Black Saturday (2009)
Black Sunday (1926, 1955)
Black Christmas (1971)
We’re only missing Monday!
We speak with wet eyes of towns, whose names few of us knew before
Bruthen and Coongbar
Wytaliba and Willawarrin
Jingalic and Cobargo
Maramingo Creek and Conjola
Mallacoota.
And we’ve pulled out that old faded word that often comes out at a time like this,like an old dusty book that sits on the shelf, rarely opened, somewhat disowned.
Prayer
We’re all praying for rain. Believer and unbeliever alike. Rain.
And we’re asking of God Why hasn’t God protected us?
Has God forgotten us?
How can God be good?
Until when will we wait for our prayers to be answered?
Until when will we wait?
We look at our calendars –and we know we can’t take a breath ‘til March.
It’s no longer ‘summer’, it’s ‘fire season’
We wake to the smell of smoke.
Our phones lit up with our emergency apps
And we’re out in our gardens
And we’re keeping our grass low
And we’re raking up our leaves
And emptying the gutters
But where are you, Lord?
Forgotten. That’s how we feel.
Look our way!
Just below the 26th parallel.
To our, your, great, southern, sunburnt land.
‘Thou art coming to a king, Large petitions with thee bring’‘
Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be known to God’
Here we are.
We stand in prayer. We kneel in prayer
Our prayers are in our thoughts. Our thoughts turn into prayers.
Look our way, O Lord.
Reach out your hands in mercy and fill those clouds with rain across our vast land.
Not pitter patter rain. Not gentle rain. Not Melbourne rain – give us Brisbane rain!
Not floodS!, but hearty, drenching, life-giving, fire-quenching, Drought-ending, renewing rain.
We cannot bring this about ourselves.
We feel our powerlessness, Lord.
Without you, who made and is sovereign over all, we cannot turn the flames back.
