A prayer from ChristChurch Cathedral

Lord, at times such as this,
when we realize that the ground beneath our feet
is not as solid as we had imagined,
we plead for your mercy.

As the things we have built crumble about us,
we know too well how small we truly are

on this ever-changing, ever-moving,
fragile planet we call home.
Yet you have promised never to forget us.
Do not forget us now.

Today, so many people are afraid.
They still wait in fear of the next tremor.

They remember the cries of the injured amid the rubble.
They roam the streets in shock at what they see.
And they fill the dusty air with cries of grief
and the names of missing dead.

Comfort them, Lord, in this disaster.
Be their rock when the earth refuses to stand still,

and shelter them under your wings
when homes no longer exist.

Embrace in your arms those who died so suddenly this week.
Console the hearts of those who mourn,
and ease the pain of bodies on the brink of death.

Pierce, too, our hearts with compassion,
we who watch from afar,
find only misery upon misery.

Move us to act swiftly this day,
to give generously every day,
to work for justice always,
To pray unceasingly for those without hope.

And once the shaking has ceased,
the images of destruction have stopped filling the news,
and our thoughts return to life’s daily rumblings,
let us not forget that we are all your children
and they, our brothers and sisters.
We are all the work of your hands.

For though the mountains leave their place
and the hills be tossed to the ground,
your love shall never leave us,
and your promise of peace will never be shaken.


Our help is in the name of the Lord,
who made heaven and earth.
Blessed be the name of the Lord,
now and forever. Amen.

Dorothea Mackellar's 1904 poem My country comes to many minds in time of flood and fire. Some extracts:

I love a sunburnt country,
A land of sweeping plains,
Of ragged mountain ranges,
Of droughts and flooding rains.
I love her far horizons,
I love her jewel-sea,
Her beauty and her terror—
The wide brown land for me!

... Her pitiless blue sky,
When sick at heart, around us,
We see the cattle die—
But then the grey clouds gather,
And we can bless again
The drumming of an army,
The steady, soaking rain ...

... For flood and fire and famine,
She pays us back threefold —
Over the thirsty paddocks,
Watch, after many days,
The filmy veil of greenness
That thickens as we gaze.

An opal-hearted country,
A wilful, lavish land ...

Visiting Tasmania during the end-of-year break, we saw the jewelled seas at the Bay of Fires

... vast East coast beaches were almost empty of people,

... and everywhere the vast blue horizons, the filmy veil of greenness.

We're just back from Christmas and New Year in Hobart, where my father, John, and James celebrated their birthdays on the same day — 2nd January — and shared a cake.