364 days later

On this night, 27 August 2011, a year ago, the owner of this house went to bed, as normal, never expecting that by the end of the next day the house would look like this. The owner probably never expected that a year later, the house would still look like this as the owner awaits a settlement from FEMA.

Yesterday about eighty residents of the small town here gathered for a potluck lunch to give thanks for the first responders and the general esprit de corps that held people together in the first days post Irene. Little old Plymouth was one of the isolated thirteen towns (though it was ignored initially despite having all three ways in and out cut off and within the town borders was divided in three, like Gaul), so people had to rely on one another in the confusion of the days after Tropical Storm Irene passed through.

A local 501 c 3 has collected enough money to help the owner of this house and the other people whose homes were destroyed or properties ravaged by the flood waters.

Yesterday we took a tour of a man's property that had been surrounded by a wall of water on both sides. Remarkably the house was OK; the septic field failed when the brook bed disappeared; the little waterfall they had enjoyed disappeared in the flood. As he walked us around, showing us all the changes to his property and narrating what happened, I had a sense of déjà vu, of being with other people who had gone through disasters (notably in El Salvador), who point out what was and is no longer and, in the process of pointing out things, have an opportunity to tell their story.

Tomorrow night at 7.00PM residents of Vermont are invited to ring bells for a minute. It is a symbolic time; waters raged for several days more, but by 7.00PM on Sunday 28 August 2011, we already had realised that our state had changed vastly in the course of twelve hours.

Now, 364 days later, we pray for those in the path of Isaac, praying they will not have to go through what we went through, but knowing that already the people of Haiti have.

May God have mercy on all of us.

Continuing transition

A year ago as I was contemplating 'jumping off the cliff,' by leaving Trinity, I honestly did not think I would be unemployed a year later and having to move yet again. But that seems to be what is in the cards for me. The difference is that this time I am packing up my things without a clue to where I will move. I just know I need to leave the place where I currently am living because the rent has become prohibitive.

Any priest in The Episcopal Church knows how glacially slow parish discernment processes can be. While I may be in conversation about two, I know realistically that we are talking until late fall at this point.

Meanwhile, the state of Vermont approaches the first year of Irene when a lot of people's lives were turned upside down in ways far worse than mine. I guess we are all in it together.

Four months

Four months ago, the worst of Irene had struck our beloved state of Vermont. These scenes had already taken place: Rte 4 had already washed out in Mendon, Rutland was flooded and there was so much we did not know.

Irene barrelled through Vermont a week after I resigned because I had finally extracted from the wardens that they would not call me as rector.

As Vermont Public Radio has had an update today on where things are for people affected by Irene, I realise that in my own way, I have been carrying all this stuff on my heart.

No wonder I am sad every time I drive into Plymouth Union and see the wreckage caused by Irene. I think of Sue, whose house was destroyed by the brook that ran by it [in picture; she put up the 'house for sale' sign as a joke]. I think of the elderly couple in the house two over whose house was condemned. And I think of the people down the road whose house still stands but the first floor needs total gutting.

My situation is so minor in the great scheme of things. But it is inextricably woven into the story of Irene. Thus, the retrospectives throw me back to those last days of August which were so crazy.

Christmas Eve sermon

[This sermon is not being preached anywhere but on the internet.]

No longer can I hear the story of the nativity with the same ears or see it with the same eyes of my imagination. For a long time, my heart has ached upon hearing the words, ‘O little town of Bethlehem, how still we see thee lie....’ Having gone to Bethlehem, no longer a little town, my vision of the place has changed.

The basilica, Christendom’s oldest complete and working church now devoted to Jesus’ birthplace, like so many other places in the Middle East, is a place of dispute. The Orthodox run the old part of the church where one gains access to the grotto that is the birthplace of Christ whereas the Franciscans hold masses in an adjoining church that is a smaller duplication of the older basilica. Elsewhere in the complex, Armenians worship.

The birthplace of Jesus is marked by a large star that most recently dates to 1717 and was also a source of dispute in the 19th century. Regardless of who wants the star in place and who does not, the star is clearly in a cave which was the typical place for animals to be kept as well as for women to give birth. Facing the star is the place where the manger was, just a couple of footsteps away. To venerate both, one must kneel down and stick one’s head under an altar and be careful not to bang one’s head against the suspended votives that surround the two spots.

The day I visited Jesus’ birthplace, things were not flowing smoothly in the basilica for the simple reason that Senator John McCain was visiting. He and his entourage swept past the long queue of people to descend the steep stairs into the grotto. The rest of us hoi poloi were left standing, waiting and waiting and waiting.

To leave Bethlehem to return to Jerusalem, one has to go through the partition wall, the thirty-foot high barrier that separates Israel from Palestine. It is forbidding, foreboding with its concertina wire up top, the gun turrets every so far, the huge sliding doors that allow army vehicles into the space between the two countries. Pedestrians walk through a cattleshoot-like tunnel to leave Palestine, enter the security area before exiting into Israel. The Palestinian side of the wall is covered by graffiti — exceptionally artistic paintings — whereas the Israeli side is barren.

Just as it is impossible to separate out the political from the spiritual today, so it was in Jesus’ day. Why should the Son of God be born into such a humble family, to an unwed mother who should have been cast off and rejected? Why should the Holy Family have had to scrounge for housing were it not for the census — a census dictated by an occupying force, the Romans. Then as now, the land where Jesus was born was under dispute. Most of all, why should God have chosen to irrupt into history at that point in time in that small person of a fragile baby?

Every year we come face-to-face with the mystery of the Incarnation, God-made-flesh, Emmanuel, in Jesus the Christ. Every year we have to grapple with the paradox of the splendour of God’s universe and the particularity of the crib. Every year we are reminded that the soft wood of the crib becomes the hard wood of the cross and that through this tiny infant humanity was redeemed. It is an awful lot to contemplate. In some ways, we avoid it all by the frenzy of shopping and preparing the household for guests and fancy meals. The mystery of the Incarnation is so mind-boggling when one gets down to it, that one chooses to focus on the candles and sentimentality of imagined perfect Christmas celebrations instead.

Underneath all the lights, wrappings, feasts, music and commotion, though, lies our simple human need to know that we are loved… loved beyond measure by the same God who created the universe and the Son of Humanity. That assurance is what we really seek. We yearn to hear God’s heartbeat under our ears, to know that God is as close as our breath.

Knowing that God loves us unconditionally and immeasurably will not take away the pain there is. God’s love won’t find us a job or housing or restore the ravaged hillsides and rivers of Vermont to their pre-Irene status. God’s love will not end cancer or improve the economy or bring back lost loves and friendships. Those sufferings are part of the finitude of humankind, they are the human condition. These limitations do, however, challenge us to make a difference — to bind up the broken-hearted, to heal the sick, to give water to the thirsty, to clothe the naked, to give food to the hungry, to visit those in jail. For those of us who know and love God, we are called to change this world to one where God’s mercy and justice — God’s jubilee — break into this otherwise incomplete and shattered world.

By struggling to infuse our world with God’s grace, we continue in the spirit that brought us Jesus who, as God made flesh, showed us God’s love. Jesus, the Alpha and the Omega, the source, the beginning — he, of the father’s love begotten.

We yearn for peace, we yearn for a healed world… and most of all, we yearn for God.

Come, Lord Jesus, come.

Come, fill our hearts.

Come, break down the walls that separate us.

Come, show us God’s love so that we might show it to others.

Come close once again.

Come, Lord Jesus, come.

[pictures taken in February 2011]

A new way of reading the land

Now when we drive around Vermont we have a new way of reading the land... not just where the brooks and rivers ate away their banks and caused all manner of trees and boulders to fall into the water but also the roads...when one sees the following, one knows that the floods post Irene caused this change:

mangled guard rails
iron trestle bridges smashed up against the river bank
gravel on the edge of the road
tilting electric/phone polls
white rif-raf (large gravel) on the edge of the road
newly paved patches or complete segments of the road

This all is going to cost a small fortune and it is absolutely amazing that as many of our roads are up and open again. This said, I still did not try 107 from Bethel to Stockbridge today.

Keeping Vigil

This week a lovingly-made sachet [the purple square with butterflies at the base of the vase] of rosemary arrived from California. It is no ordinary sachet but a holy one for interspersed with the rosemary (for remembrance) are some of Kirstin's ashes. Before the snow falls, which could be any day, a couple of us will gather to commit them to God's care in the orchard at Church of Our Saviour, Killington, VT.

Church of Our Saviour is a tiny congregation that worships in a Norman-style 1895 stone church. Located on the Killington Flats, deep in a valley, the church has long ministered to the local community. These days, it is deeply involved in reaching out to those affected by the flooding caused by Irene. Some of the worst flooding happened here, as attested to in this photo:

(The pickup still is nose down in the pavement.)

In any event, Church of Our Saviour has historic connections with Holy Cross and some of the priests who have lived there have kept to the Benedictine way of life, labour is prayer. The church has had a working farm off and on and now there is a resident baker (who makes excellent fruit tarts which are sold at Monastery Greetings), who also is the church organist and maintains a Benedictine pattern of life. The church is always open for the way-farer and since the mid-1990s has revived its guest house ministry. There are now walking trails up above the church in the hills to enhance the sojourner's time.

So it is in this context that some of Kirstin's ashes will be interred. The apple trees had a good crop this year. Her life will become part of Our Saviour's.

Meanwhile, I keep vigil, placing the sachet by the 1000 peace crane arrangement that Kirstin received from her cat-sitter a year ago. Kirstin's laughter, stability, clarity and commitment to God and God's creation help me maintain steadiness and hope in this incredibly stressful time in my life.

'I believe in the Communion of Saints....' Don't know how else I could make it.

We SO do not need this

HAZARDOUS WEATHER OUTLOOK
NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE BURLINGTON VT
502 AM EDT THU SEP 29 2011

THIS HAZARDOUS WEATHER OUTLOOK IS FOR NORTHERN NEW YORK…CENTRAL VERMONT…NORTHEAST VERMONT…NORTHWEST VERMONT AND SOUTHERN VERMONT.

.DAY ONE…TODAY AND TONIGHT.

OCCASIONAL SHOWERS WITH AN EMBEDDED THUNDERSTORMS WILL BE POSSIBLE TODAY ACROSS THE NORTH COUNTRY. THESE SHOWERS WILL BE CAPABLE OF PRODUCING LOCALIZED AREAS OF HEAVY RAINFALL…ESPECIALLY ACROSS THE HIGHER TERRAIN OF THE ADIRONDACKS OF NEW YORK AND GREEN MOUNTAINS OF CENTRAL AND SOUTHERN VERMONT. LOCALIZED RAINFALL AMOUNTS OF 1 TO 2 INCHES WILL POSSIBLE…WHICH MAY CAUSE RISES ON STREAMS AND RIVERS BY TONIGHT.

.DAYS TWO THROUGH SEVEN…FRIDAY THROUGH WEDNESDAY.

A DEVELOPING COASTAL LOW PRESSURE OVER THE WEEKEND WILL HAVE THE POTENTIAL TO PRODUCE ANOTHER MODERATE TO HEAVY RAINFALL EVENT ACROSS THE NORTH COUNTRY. AN ADDITIONAL 1 TO 2 INCHES OF RAINFALL WILL BE POSSIBLE BY MONDAY…WHICH WILL CAUSE RISES ON AREA STREAMS AND RIVERS.

FURTHERMORE…ENOUGH COLD AIR ACROSS THE HIGHER TERRAIN OF THE ADIRONDACK MOUNTAINS IN NORTHERN NEW YORK AND PARTS OF THE GREEN MOUNTAINS IN VERMONT…MAY SUPPORT SOME WET SNOW. A FEW INCHES OF SNOW ACCUMULATION WILL BE POSSIBLE BY MONDAY ABOVE 2000 FEET.

Five years...

of blogging and in the past two, my efforts here have greatly fallen off... partly because of wasting so much time on Facebook, partly because of having a more demanding job, partly because of a general state of being distracted.

Four years ago I hiked up Hunger Mountain on a gorgeous September afternoon and came home to take the plunge and create this blog. I miss that hike. We only got out one night this summer. What a change from last year of tromping 166 miles on the Long Trail.

But life being what it is, we don't always get to do the things we want to do.

And once again, my life will be in total upheaval this winter as I leave Trinity and hunt for another congregation somewhere, somehow... that all means packing up again (haven't unpacked everything wondering if I was going to have to move; it was a premonition... I don't have everything to pack up because I lost a good chunk of it in 2009 when the cellar flooded), and more so, trying to figure out where to live in between calls. It is almost hopeless trying to find rentals on the web because in this neck of the woods, all one can dredge up are vacation rentals where the website only allows plugging in $750/week. You've got to be kidding. I am thinking more in terms of $750/month. (Dream on.)

Meanwhile, I think of those who have totally lost their homes in the wake of Irene three weeks ago. Our state of Vermont looks very different now and our streams and rivers have carved out new beds. We'll adapt, once we get through our loss.

So shall I.

Oh, the heartbreak

Farmers have such a special relationship with their animals... from an article about how Vermont farmers have suffered from Irene:

It was while the rescue boat was ferrying the Severances to safety that they saw some of the cows from the pasture floating down the White River.

Some made it alive a few miles down the river, Buddy said.

“People were calling — they said they heard cows in the river bawling, just going down through,” he said. “We know that they made it at least that far alive. I would have rather seen them, at least the ones that did go down the river, I would have rather watched them drown than have them go that far and suffer.”

Where I called home for 14+ years

Cold River

Today I finally got out of Rutland and headed back to the AT/LT at Cold River and the Clarendon Gorge.

I thought I could get further on Rte 7 before getting the road back but couldn't even get past LaValley's. The orange posts showed that already there was a problem.

The sign astutely reads, 'ROAD CLOSED.'

The detour on back roads avoids this bridge collapse on Rte 7.

This photo of the Cold River is how it looked prior to 28 August; I took it two weeks ago.

Here is another 'before' photo.

Trees and all manner of things that washed down river and got hung up at the bend.

More junk.

This is now what the river looks like. It has shrunk greatly.

These rocks used to be covered by water.

This tree is stuck in the river just below the bridge.

The river now flows in a narrow channel.

This summer there were a bunch people camped out here. Good thing they had decamped or they would have been washed out permanently.

There's silt and broken trees where there used to be a place to camp.

As far as the Green Mountain Club knows, the abutments to the suspension bridge are still OK. It is a moot point since the National Forest is closed.

Another view from the bridge of all the stuff that washed downstream.

A tire got stuck in a tree.

Excellent Photos of Vermont

Go here for some amazing photos.

Vermont Flood Hi-Res Gallery - August 2011

Photo credit: Lars Gange & Mansfield Heliflight
Free for editorial use. Call 802-238-7809 for additional usage questions.

Here are a couple of photos to pique your curiosity.

Killington Rte 4 looking west.

The Rte 4 cliffs in Mendon... note all the excavators in the riverbed.

The paradox of destruction on the road, a house with its swimming pool intact and the beauty of the Vermont Green Mountains (Pico and Killington).

A woman in Pittsfield waves to the plane as it flies overhead. She stands in the midst of her possessions spread outside to dry.

Day Five

Elsewhere I read how someone snapped at his wife for no apparent reason other than he had been blogging all week about the disaster in Vermont. It's time for psychological first aid for the entire state... of course for those directly affected but, in time, for the whole state of Vermont which is still reeling from the massive flooding Sunday and the frustration that even last night there were flash floods that took out some of the tenuous temporary roads that had been put it.

We used this chart with the clergy and lay leaders of l'Eglise Episcopal d'Haiti last year in the CREDO Strength for the Journey program. I have back-translated it from Creole to English but you get the gist.

I'd say we are somewhere along the hill up or at the top: people are helping out one another, there has been incredible esprit de corps at work in all communities, particularly the isolated ones that now at least have one goat path in/out. Communities all have their emergency response teams and have organised themselves into traffic patrols, limiting access in and out of the village; putting up the water and MREs that the Illinois National Guard has dropped; communicating with the outside world by cell phone to folks with full internet access.

But, even the hardiest people will get weary. And that's where the long slog kicks in. As we kept telling the Haitians: You can't sleep at night? That's normal. You are tired? That's normal. You don't have an appetite? That's normal. You're running on fumes? You need to put some gas in your tank.

It is what one calls the 'new normal.' Things won't be the same as they were Saturday 27 August. Our landscape has been greatly altered; people have lost everything they have.

But the human will to survive, the human spirit is a remarkable thing. And Vermonters are tough and Vermont will rise again.

Major distraction

My beloved state of Vermont. We will rise again... words I remember that the Episcopal Diocese of Haiti used for their 2010 diocesan convention post-earthquake. Oh, our floods are nothing like the Haitian earthquake but they have changed life in the Green Mountain State in ways we don't yet realise.

These are all photos that Compa took in our small hamlet.

You want rocks? Come 'n get 'em. For free.

This is what our road looked like on Monday. It has been filled in to make one lane. But if it rains hard this weekend....

Here is our road a bit further down as it looked Monday. Again, it has been half-filled in.

I can't tell you how many countless times I have driven this section of Rte 100 between Plymouth Union and Tyson... without thinking. Now, to circumvent this hole, one has to take a goat path through the woods, a gravel pit and someone's property to get back on pavement.

Now, multiply this hundreds of times throughout the state and you'll see what lies ahead of us... repairing a trashed road and bridge system.

Unfathomable.

The sign on the house says, 'Please stay out. This is all I have left.' This house is in our village, too. Sadly, upstate there has been looting of people's property out to dry.

Irene was tough but Vermonters are tougher. So there.

Post-Irene

Here is the monthly note to the congregation:

29 August 2011

Dear Friends,

The state of Vermont woke up this morning to a new reality that turns the joke, ‘You can’t get there from here’ on its head. All of a sudden, we truly can’t get there from here. Whether it is from the south or the east or the north or west, either there are no options at all or extensive detours. The north, south and west will open up soon enough once the flood waters recede and repairs made but the eastern entry points, notably Route 4, will take much, much more time to be restored to pre-Irene status.

A few Trinitarians were around for the 1927 floods; a lot more for the 1973 floods and now there is a whole body that will be able to recall in future years what they were doing during the storm of 2011 and how the aftermath affected them. The photos up on the web are beyond incredible; they are horrible. In this super-connected world, postings on Facebook and email have brought home just what challenges lie ahead.

The change from a placid Saturday afternoon to a Sunday with driving rain back to a gorgeous dry and sunny day on Monday reminds us of how transitory life can be. A New York Times editorial spoke of what we have just went through in these terms: ‘In a tornado or hurricane, there is something roaring and visceral out there, something embodied, something approaching, a force acting on a human scale of time and amenable to a human sense of narrative’ (18 August 1999). As any Vermonter can now attest, we clearly have a sense of before, during and after Irene. Today, portions of Vermont, New England, and the Eastern Seaboard struggle to regain a sense of normalcy. Tomorrow it will be somewhere else.

Just as we will need to find new ways to get around, we will also need resiliency and patience to deal with whatever changes there might be in our normal routine. For those of us who were not greatly affected by the storm, we can reach out to those who were. The small congregation of Gethsemane, Proctorsville no longer has a parish hall — it is a pile of lumber — and the church’s foundation has been severely compromised by the floods. The bishop is gradually collecting information about other congregations and when asked for help, we can respond.

On a microlevel, people in our midst have gone through storms, be they physical, emotional or spiritual. We do not need meterological upheavals to remind us of how fragile our internal gyroscope can be. An illness can upset one’s emotional and spiritual well-being. The death of a family member or close friend can be as disorienting as a washed-out road. Any major change, whether in our families, friends, community, even our church, risks throwing everything in life out of balance. We have all gone through such changes and we will again and again. God does not throw these challenges at us to test us; rather, they are part of life. Simply put, the chances and changes in our lives remind us of our finitude and our dependence on God.

The words of Psalm 46 are even more poignant today as we contemplate a new landscape:

1 God is our refuge and strength, *

a very present help in trouble.
2 Therefore we will not fear, though the earth be moved, *
and though the mountains be toppled into the
 depths of the sea;
3 Though its waters rage and foam, *

and though the mountains tremble at its tumult.
4 The LORD of hosts is with us; *

 the God of Jacob is our stronghold.

No matter what life throws at me, I trust that God is the solid rock on which I stand and that, even if the ground under my feet is not too stable or life is uncertain, all will be well. These words of Dame Julian of Norwich are not empty platitudes; they represent for me the faith that no matter how much upheaval there may be in life, I will find a path through somehow, even if it takes some real bushwacking, with God’s help.

May God walk with you as well as you navigate whatever challenges lie ahead.

Below are screen grabs of places I know in my beloved state of Vermont. They come from various blogs such as Vermont Today, or FB Vermont Flooding 2011, or Woodstock Early Bird and finally picture galleries at the Burlington Free Press.

Woodstock Farmers Market where we liked to shop.

Farmers Market is the furthest away on the left; next is the Vermont Standard.

Vermont Standard. Note the Macs.

Next in line is Leonards... next to it is a propane tank depot which, once flooded, unleashed 200 tanks down the river.

The White Cottage had the best hamburgers.

Another shot of the White Cottage.

Now moving to the west on Rte 4, one of the major, major east-west routes in Vermont that goes up and over Mendon Pass, going by Killington and Pico ski areas, and the Long Trail/Appalachian Trail...

The guy from whom we bought our property used to own the Back Behind at the intersection of Rtes 4 and 100.

I fear the livestock that the guy next to the gas station had (sort of a mini tourist attraction) got swept downstream: their little shed is the upside-down building. The gas station is across from the Back Behind.

UPDATE: Mosher did not lose his animals; Craig lured them to higher grounds; the donkeys baby-sat the sheep. Today the cow and bulls are out. Blackies [Irving gas station] is OK, the flood wiped out its parking lot; and tore the side el off.

During the storm looking east on the Killington Flats.

This white house had just been fixed up and was looking good; it is across the road from the previous photo.

Fortunately the house was empty.

Taken today from more or less the same spot.

Looking back up; this is the east side of Mendon Pass.

Now onto the west side of Mendon Pass... you'll see why we can't get there from here and why Mendon and Killington are cut off.

This is what the road looked like Sunday evening and even then it looked serious.

Here it is the next day.

Looking back the other way.

Now heading south on Rte 7, the other way out of Rutland.

Happily there is a way around this so we can get south and east.

Moving over to the other side of Woodstock and Killington, little Plymouth VT (Calvin Coolidge's birthplace).

The village is isolated with the Rte 4 washouts and here is one south of the village.

Skipping down to Ludlow VT, site of Okemo.

This photo does not show the real devastation which is in the centre of town.

Good 'za joint.

The next town over is tiny, tiny but home to Gethsemane Episcopal Church. These photos aren't very good because they are screen grabs from a video.

The collapsed building in the background is their parish hall.

Looks as though the church got moved sideways on its foundation.

Jumping upstate to Bethel....

I used to drive past this house all the time. People had done a nice job of fixing it up.

This house is to the right of the above house... this one belongs to a state trooper.

Moving up toward Montpelier, a swing through my former town, Northfield... site of the wonderful three covered bridges that sit one right after another. The highest bridge had a tree shoved up through its side through the roof and the road has eroded on either side but the bridge held. Lots of covered bridges got swept away.

I used to go under this bridge on my many trips into Montpelier. The RV store right next to the road was destroyed.

Finally, close to home...

My vet clinic Sunday night. I don't know how they fared. I am sure their partner clinic in Ludlow is destroyed.

Update: the clinic in Ludlow had no water; the clinic here is open but they said it was pretty bad the beginning of the week. They transferred all the animals to other vet clinics in town so no one was in danger. On Monday, they were seeing patients in the parking lot.

So there you be, a selective tour... in another note some other time, a few shots of Wilmington which I know from my childhood.