Grief and God in the Texas Hill Country
Love, Honor, and Hard Questions for Central Texas
Some will say this is not the time for questions. I say it is exactly the time. When the water recedes, truth must be found and honored.
Dear Readers,
I love Kerr County people. I have spent a good deal of time there. A Virginian in the Texas Hill Country. I grieve with them because I know them. I have wept with them before, eulogized family there. Nearly 100 people in Central Texas, including over two dozen from Camp Mystic, a private Christian summer camp for girls, were lost. In the past, we would have had headlines that read, “100 Souls Lost in Tragic Floods.” I think I prefer the old headlines that emphasized “souls” as an appreciation of human life, but I want to offer more than a historian’s sentimentality.
For Christians who wonder where God was during the Texas floods, He was in the same place He was during the 2004 great tsunami in Asia, during the droughts in Africa, during Hurricane Katrina. Natural disasters have happened for all of recorded history, and if you never wondered where God was when it happened to others, why should that change when it happens to you?
The truth is, God has given humans the capacity for organization, planning, and preparedness. For good government. When a tragedy of this scale occurs, it is not impious to ask if there was a failure by the authorities, and if so, who failed and how. It is a duty. Do so to honor the counselors and girls, and neighbors who died trying to save one another. They gave the utmost for one another.
This is a tragedy. It is not good.
If the government was not prepared, if its citizens were not contacted and warned when they could have been, then it is appropriate to grieve and to rage and to demand accountability. Those who caution you against such feelings wish to protect from scrutiny the political figures whom they support and do not want weakened. That is a cruelty pretending to be responsible sympathy. It asks grieving people to stay quiet so that no one in power is made uncomfortable. That is not pastoral. It is political calculation in religious language.
It is right for the people of Kerr County and the other impacted areas to demand an assessment of the local, state, and yes, the federal governments’ responses to the weather threat before and during the flooding of the Guadalupe River. This is not a denial of grief. It is a call to consistency. Faith is not a shield against reality. It has, in fact, been the opposite. Faith calls for a confrontation with reality. Grief can and must coexist with clarity. Christians are not exempt from the sorrows of the world, and they are certainly not exempt from the responsibilities that sorrow brings. They are called to use their faith to face those responsibilities with resolve.
There is no justifying the loss of lives, young and old. It is tragedy and catastrophe. Let no one attempt to negate the sorrow nor make the weeping feel guilty for any anger they may feel at the response. Seek and get the truth in love. Grieve deeply because it is called for. Cry because it is justified. Lament because this is a time of lamentation.
Grief does not negate the duty to get to the bottom of what happened. You can grieve and rage at the same time and do both to good effect. As you do so, love your neighbors, and honor their love for you.
As always, thoughtful and relevant. I once heard a pastor talking about Disasters, evil, and God. He made the point that God never promised that bad things wouldn't happen, just that He would be beside us in the storms and travails of life. And as Christ was incarnate as both Man and God, he I am sure saw and experienced plenty of both and felt them as we feel them. This of course flies in the face of those who would wish to blame God or who would ridicule those of us who trust in God's faithfulness. It is not we who are shortsighted, we see not only this earthly trouble filled life before, but also God's promise of a future life.
While the timing and extent of the flood last week in the Hill Country was unusual, it was not unprecedented and warning of potential flash flooding was broadcast, the NWS didn't fail. In 1987, a similar though not as intense storm killed 10. What set this most recent disaster apart were two factors. First, the amount of rain that fell exceeded the NWS's predictions both in terms of the amount of rain and the speed with which it fell. The second is the amount of development with new recreational camps and activity in an area known for flash flooding.
Despite the technological advances in weather forecasting, the actual weather is unpredictable. They knew in advance there would be significant rainfall, but the extent and speed of that rainfall was unknowable. Perhaps, the second factor is a case of human hubris, it's happened before but 'we're so much smarter now,' just as with continued development in areas prone to wildfire (especially with environmental practices that actually encourage wildfires by removing underbrush and controlled burning combined with deteriorated electrical infrastructure), we continue to build in areas with significant known natural disaster potential, the hills of Southern California, the beaches of Florida, and to a lesser extent, the Hill Country of Texas.