A Prayer for Those Who Rose with the River
A poem written for Texas and for all who were caught in the flood
Sarah Skinner, Kaleidoscope Institute, July 2025
Grief doesn’t steep like tea. It boils over when we least expect it.
We know that people in our Kaleidoscope circles are grieving.
We see you.
We walk alongside you.
This is our tea time this week.
Sometimes, the cup slips from your hand.
Sometimes, tears and tea spill alongside each other.
Sometimes, grief hits before you even know what’s happened.
Sometimes, the kindness of others feels like the only thing that holds you together.
We believe in tending sacred spaces. Even (especially) when they look like mismatched mugs and tearful silence. This is the Holy Currency of Wellness. And Relationship. And also Truth.
Because we name what we have seen.
And that is grief.
This poem was written just after the floods in Texas, but it is for all of us who have felt the rising of grief, of helplessness.
This is a prayer for love that will not stop rising.
We offer it here. As a prayer, a companion, and a call to rise.
A Prayer for Those Who Rose with the River
From Sarah and the Holy One she writes with
A poem written for Texas
For all who were caught in the flood
O Holy Love rising with the dawn,
O Holy Love unflinching when the water swells.
We bring to you
the ache of soaked pillows,
the trembling of small hands clutching wet stuffed animals,
the quiet terror behind a brave counselor's smile.
We bring the memory of joy drowned before morning,
of water that rose too fast,
of a father pulling out his kayak to save his daughter,
of parents driving toward roads they cannot pass.
We bring, too,
what the news does not:
the man in the RV who had nowhere else,
the woman sleeping under the bridge who was never counted,
the neighbor who waded door to door
knocking, calling, Are you safe?
We do not come with answers.
We come with hands to hold,
With eyes to witness.
And with our voice loud
To say: we see you
To say: you matter
Spirit of the rising flood,
Spirit of the rising neighbor,
Spirit of the risen Love,
Rise in us now.
Let this not pass unseen.
Let this not pass untouched.
When the world points fingers,
may we point to one another
not in blame,
but in belonging.
Let the next rising be not of flood
but the roar of fierce, tender response.
As I thought about the flooding along the Guadalupe River, I thought about the rise of love after Hurricane Helene. I thought about how sometimes the most needed thing was just to be seen.
I thought too about tea I was offered when I was grieving. I spilled it. I'd lost a friend. I was living in Ireland. It was a cup of Barry’s tea someone had lovingly made just the way I liked, and set in front of me. I picked it up and dropped it with shaking hands. My friends were so quick to say, "It’s okay, it’s okay."
Maybe some of us aren’t able to hold tea in our hands right now.
And that’s okay.
They need a friend whispering, "You aren’t alone."
From North Carolina to Texas,
From Kaleidoscope to our whole community—
You are seen.
You aren’t alone.
with love,
Sarah