Hurricane

Originally delivered as Radio Commentary: Michigan Radio Recording on November 18, 1998

It's 4:30 in the morning in November and I am listening to a wind storm blowing through my neighborhood.

It's 4:30 in the morning in November and the wind is rattling my windows like a spirit of death rattling keys.

It's 4:30 in the morning in November and I am feeling the draftiness of this old house and I'm thinking maybe I need to weatherproof these windows.

I am thinking that I need to keep the world from getting inside my house.

I'm thinking about global warming and the hurricane they had in Nicaragua and I'm thinking the hurricane has come to Ann Arbor.

I'm thinking about the children in a tiny village in Nicaragua that I played with last Spring and about how a lot of them are dead now.

I'm thinking about the all the money and relief supplies we're sending to Latin America to save lives and I'm thinking about the Contras we paid to kill the same people we are now trying to save.

I'm thinking about the weather getting worse every year and meanwhile we keep driving our SUV's and pretending we aren't responsible.

I'm thinking about the article in Harper's magazine I read three years ago, which said that the ten hottest years in recorded human history have all occured since 1980, and I'm thinking about how hurricanes are only going to get worse and I'm glad I'm living in the Midwest but what about tornadoes?

I'm thinking about my basement and whether it's dry this morning and I'm thinking about the closet in the basement where maybe I should start storing up some canned goods because the wind is blowing away the farmland.

I'm thinking about Al Gore and how they called him Ozone Al and I'm wondering if the Senate will ever ratify the international agreement on global warming.

I'm thinking maybe I should do less thinking and more praying. So now I'm praying...

and I'm thinking I should write my senator.



The Rev. Matthew Lawrence
Chaplain, Canterbury House
Director, Institute for Public Theology