Priest grasps for words as storm victims question their pain
HOUSTON — The Rev. Mark Goring nears his parish community centre and the mounds of trash come into view. Shards of plywood and plaster are stacked atop heaps of black trash bags bulging with soggy filth. Inside, soaked furniture has been pushed aside as workers buzz jigsaws to cut slabs of drywall soaked by more than two feet (60 centimetres) of water that gushed in from the bayou.
It’s a mirror of what many who pray alongside this priest are struggling with at home, and he draws them close in a circle, heads bowed and hands clasped. He tells them they worship a god of miracles, that they won’t be crushed by their losses, that as mysterious and unwanted as it may be, this trial is a gift that reminds them what exactly they hold true.
“Now is the time,” he tells them, “for us to stand on our faith.”
Some who have come to Goring in the days since Hurricane Harvey hit ask what kind of god would allow such suffering. It’s a question for which he has no answer. Others who have lost everything come with broad smiles, praising the heavens in gratitude and displaying a depth of faith the 41-year-old priest isn’t even sure he could show. All of them are in search of something, putting Goring’s ministry in a race to help with both spiritual and material needs, and to use the devastation as an opportunity to be an example of love wherever he goes.