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Greetings!
It’s hard to believe that it has been two months since the atmospheric rivers and landslides damaged Forest Service Road 8301, leading to Holden’s evacuation and the closure to guests. This has been an incredibly difficult time for our community.
As Executive Directors, we have felt it personally. We have been displaced from our home, and our family has had to adjust to a new life outside the Village. We know that our staff members have also been greatly affected, experiencing the trauma of an emergency evacuation and the loss of their homes, their community, and for many, their jobs.
And we know that our larger Holden community is also hurting. This place of respite and renewal, where we go for relief and restoration, is closed. And we don’t know when it will reopen. With everything else going on in our country and in our world, this cuts especially deep.
We know there is power in naming things, so we write to you today to say: This is hard. This time, this closure, this moment in our world is incredibly difficult. These past two months have been filled with many different emotions for us—sadness, anger, pain, frustration. Maybe you have felt these things too.
When we, as a community, cannot acknowledge the fear and pain that we feel, we are more likely to be governed by it. When we cannot come to terms with the impermanence and precarity of the world, we are more likely to experience the deep pain of having our lack of control shock us and shake us. If we let our fear establish habits of distrust, our bodies will take us down those paths again and again until we feel trapped in canyons of isolation and anger.
This is why community is so powerful. Together, we are able to hold far more than we could ever hold alone. From the moment we learned of the road damage, this community showed up to help us consider the risks, support the staff, and offer resources of every kind. And when we made the difficult decision to evacuate our staff so that we could return with the necessary expertise and plans, Villagers of every stripe accompanied us each step of the way.
As a family and as directors, we have had a rollercoaster of a time the last two months. We have been furious, and we have been deeply concerned. We have been in anguish, and we have been heartbroken. But we have not been afraid. We do not wish for the pain of this moment, but we have full faith in our collective ability to hold one another through the discomfort and difficulty.
Because Jesus showed us another way. It is the way of compassion and connection. It is the way of sitting with each other in our hardest moments, so we don’t have to go through them alone. It is the recognition of grace as the pinnacle of strength.
We are not afraid because we believe that God is doing a new thing at Holden Village. Do you perceive it?
It’s okay if you don’t, yet. But we also believe that you will. As directors, we are not afraid of the way ahead, because we know the way that Jesus showed us. It is the way of faith in the goodness of creation, in the holy interconnectedness of every living being, and in the love of the Creator. And this community has every capability to walk that road together, no matter its condition.
It’s time, not just for bravery, but for the good courage that comes from compassion, from sustainability, and from justice. So let’s double down on empathy, on faith, on the strength that can only come through relationship. And let us show ourselves ready and willing to offer our hands to the new work to which God’s servants are being called.
With Good Courage,
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