The Day Before the Day Before the Hurricane

Our days of watching and waiting and hoping and cursing and praying are coming to a close.  Hurricane Irma arrives at some point in the next 24 hours.  When I look at the radar, it seems we'll feel some bands later today or tonight.  I think (and desperately hope) that we'll have a storm that arrives in daylight.

My spouse did much of the hurricane prep on Thursday, but some of it must be done at the last minute.  Yesterday, I made some raspberry streusel bars, in part to use up the frozen raspberries, in part because they make good breakfast food.  My spouse and I plotted out the day.

I made a quick run to the bank to deposit my spouse's paycheck while he started working on installing the last hurricane panels.  I got back and helped, but I'm really not much help.  For every wingnut I installed, he installed 4.

We had made several lists of what we'd take with us, but it was surprisingly hard to finish the work.  When we were preparing, the projected track was right up the middle of the state.  Should we protect our possessions that we left behind against the wind or against the floods?  Probably both. 

I knew that I'd be leaving some stuff in the dryer--it's off the ground and well protected.  We put some framed family pictures in the dryer, but decided to leave the photo albums on the shelf.  Once I have to go back to work, I want to have those clothes, so I added them to the collection, along with my work sandals that are in better shape.

I still had room.  I put all of my poetry rough draft legal pads in there, my sketchbooks and expensive markers, and then I called it done.

I put the handwritten journals that are most important to me into the dishwasher.  It's never been connected, so I didn't worry about water backing up into it.  I was surprised by how much writing is left.  I hope I don't lose it all, but if I do, I've protected the important stuff that's not already digitalized.

Then it was on to the food decisions.  Since we would be evacuating to our friends' house, I didn't want to arrive with no food, but I wanted to be mindful that they wouldn't have room for all of our perishables.  I had some salmon in the freezer; it stayed because my friends don't eat fish much, and I didn't want to cook fish there and put up with the stinky fish wrappers through the storm. All of our non-perishables with any nutritive value fit into several bags, so they came with us, along with a cooler of food for the freezer and the fridge.

We loaded the cars, which was a sobering moment.  I looked at everything that was left behind?  Should I try to cram all the CDs into every nook and cranny of the car?  I was tempted, but I didn't.  I moved some of our items up off the floor, and we unplugged everything.  Then we put shutters over the last door and drove away.

We were worried about the traffic on major highways, so we took Highway 1 north.  I was flooded by memories:  there's the furniture store where we bought our sleigh bed which may or may not be there when we return.  There's the Riverfront Hotel, where we stayed the very first time we visited Ft. Lauderdale.  There's the Hustler Store that used to be the last Peaches Records in the U.S.  I remembered meeting friends at various restaurants along the way.  I felt somewhat desolate, but I didn't cry.

We are lucky to have friends who were sincere when they offered us shelter.  We unloaded the cars, relaxed, and played cards all afternoon, just waiting for the 5 p.m. advisory.

The 5 p.m. advisory was good for us, but terrifying for the Keys.  The track has shifted west again.  We will stay put, because we're still on the outer edge of the cone, and it's a huge storm.  We're still looking at hurricane force winds, but they'll be a category 1 or 2, not the category 4 that the Keys will feel.

By the end of the day, with all the physical labor and the worry, I was exhausted, but I found it hard to fall asleep.  I was worried about the people who are under much more severe threat than they were this morning.  I worried about the homeless people that we had seen along the way.  I worried about the ability of all of us to weather two major hurricanes in a month.  I tried to pray.  Eventually, I drifted off.

We are as prepared as we can be.  When we emerge on the other side, we'll see where everyone stands, and we'll recover.  I'm ready for this storm to be over.

Hurricane Irma Approaches

It feels like a very long time ago that I first started to monitor the progress of Hurricane Irma.  I have considered at every possibility, and now it looks like we will get the worst one for the state of Florida, a track right up the middle of the state for a major hurricane.  The only saving grace is that we might only be looking at a category 3 through most of the state, instead of a 4 or 5.

My mood has swung back and forth.  At some times, I am so terrified that I feel the blood race through my body.  I go to an alert like this one, and I wonder why we're even bothering to secure our properties when all of the buildings will collapse and we will all die.

But then I saw some information that made me hopeful--and I saw it on the local news, of all places. One of our weather experts showed a graphic of maximum expected winds in our county--105 mph, which we've survived before. It's much better than the 150 or 180 that I was terrified we might see. I also saw a graphic that I saw divides the storm risk surge into 4 categories, and we're at the lowest risk. Southern Miami Dade county and points south are at the highest risk.  In my home county, Broward, we have deep ocean out there, unlike a lot of other coastal areas, so the water will have some place to drain to. 

My mom and dad listened to our state governor's press conference on Wed--I'm not sure what that man said exactly, but boy, did it make them feel panicked. Yesterday, my mom said that if we'd get to Orlando today, she'd pay any price for our plane ticket to get us out of here.  We both searched for tickets, but there's not an empty plane seat today in any airport in Florida. 

Yesterday was a typical pre-hurricane day:  I woke up at 2, and decided to check the 11 p.m. advisory.  I wrote this Facebook post:  "I am sure that when people talk about the dark night of the soul, they are not talking about the sinking feeling that comes from waking up at 2 a.m. and reading the 11 p.m. National Hurricane Center advisory. Doing some laundry, pondering how far west is far enough to get away, hoping that the hurricane ultimately goes east of the Bahamas, far, far east."

I stayed awake for awhile, and around 3:38 a.m., I decided to go on a quest for gas.  We likely had enough to get through the storm and its aftermath, but we have had such a run on gas stations that it made me anxious.  At a convenience store nearby, I found pumps--no premium gas left, but I don't need that.  So, I filled up one car and then the other.

My car tells me how many miles are left on a tank, so when I saw I could go 430 miles, I had a brief span of time when I thought about loading up the car and driving north.  Later, my spouse and I looked at track maps and decided that everywhere we'd want to go would be in the path of the storm.  And we know that the roads get increasingly crowded as everyone feels jittery and decides to make a run for it.  Tough as it might be to ride out a storm here, it would be even worse--and likely deadly--to be stuck in the car on the Interstate.

I spent the rest of the morning before I went to work doing a bit of storm prep.  It is strange to wander around the house thinking about losing it all--and even stranger to think about how little I would miss most of it.  I don't really like most of our furniture, for example. 

I felt the most despair when I looked at the refrigerator and freezer.  I try not to stock up on perishables during hurricane season, but we still have a lot of food.  I felt this despair well up, and I thought, what is this about?  I'm feeling more despair about replaceable food than I am about other possessions?  But I realized that the largest part of my despair comes from what the food represents:  normal life, when one can buy and cook food.

As we finish our preparations today, I'll try to think about flooding.  I'll move things that are valuable to me, like a box of journals, to a higher spot.  I'll put some things like photo albums in the washer, dryer, or dishwasher.  I'll wrap some things in plastic.  One friend suggested I wrap all my books in plastic, but I don't have that kind of time--or plastic.  And frankly, if all my books were ruined, I'd only feel sad about some of them.

So, Home Depot will open momentarily.  Let me go see if I can buy some wing nuts that we need to attach the shutters to the doors (the windows have the very convenient accordion shutters) and some algaecide for the pool.

Meditation on This Sunday's Gospel

The readings for Sunday, Sept. 10, 2017:

First Reading: Ezekiel 33:7-11

First Reading (Semi-cont.): Exodus 12:1-14

Psalm: Psalm 119:33-40

Psalm (Semi-cont.): Psalm 149

Second Reading: Romans 13:8-14

Gospel: Matthew 18:15-20

The Gospel readings from the last several weeks have shown us Jesus trying to prepare his disciples to take over his mission, once he's no longer physically there to lead them. Here we see him address issues of conflict management, and his advice seems to hold true, even centuries later: try to work out the conflict privately and go through increasingly public discourse.

The last verse is one of the more famous Gospel verses, the one that tells us that we only need two or three to gather in the name of Christ, and he'll be there. But what does this verse mean for the larger church?

This morning, I'm thinking of the modern church, which seems focused on numbers and growing large.  This morning, I'm thinking of this passage and wondering if Christ calls us to be small.

I think of all the articles I've read that talk about the declining numbers of people who affiliate with a church.  I think of all the people who remember the glory days of the U.S. church, back in the middle of the 20th century, back when stores were closed on Sundays, and it seemed that everyone went to church.  When church leaders talked, communities listened.

Of course, the sociologist and historian in me also knows that many vulnerable members of the community were not heard in those days.  I would not go back to 1959, even if more people went to church on Sundays. Too many people led restricted lives--no thanks.

Still, those of us who have inherited the churches that were built during those glory days might be spending a lot of time wondering how to support those buildings with our smaller memberships.  We look for ways that the building can be a blessing to many groups, not just ours.

It's good to remember that church doesn't mean the building. This Sunday, many Lutherans who aren't experiencing a hurricane will be having God's Work, Our Hands events.  We will see the power of small groups working on a project.  As Texas has been coping with Hurricane Harvey, I've been impressed with how the ELCA Bishop of the Synod and various pastors have helped coordinate clean up efforts.

I am working on this meditation as the most powerful Atlantic storm in history, Hurricane Irene, batters the islands to my south.  I am praying for those people in the path of the storm.  I take comfort remembering that church groups often come to the aid and rescue of those who have been battered by natural disasters--and they'll often stay long after the attention of the nation has wandered somewhere else.

Jesus promises that the presence of God will be with us when only two or three gather.  And we've seen from the lives of the earliest Christians, the transforming power of what happens when groups of two or three go out into the world together in the company of the Holy Spirit.

A Prayer For Those Who Are in the Path of the Storm

Another week, another storm. I'm keeping a wary eye on Hurricane Irma, and I'm hoping for the best for those tiny islands with residents who can't evacuate.

I have always felt weird about praying about the path of hurricanes.  For one thing, I'm not sure that God gets involved in the laws of physics that way.

But for another, I'm aware that if I'm saved by the hurricane going elsewhere, it means doom for someone else.

 In Oct. 2106, I came across a way to pray about hurricanes.  The rest of this post is from a Facebook post written by Mary Mappus Finklea, who has given permission to share:

-------------------------

"Grant weather that nourishes all of creation."

 This petition from Holden evening prayer has always been particularly moving for me. Especially after staying at the Lutheran Seafarers Hostel in NYC and meeting a sailor who said it drove him crazy when everyone just wanted the storms to go out to sea. He said there are people there too to care about. I've also liked this petition because it's not "me-centered" as in 'get the storm out of MY front yard and send it up north to be some other guy's problem'. And the petition keeps in mind the welfare of plants, animals, livestock, etc.

So my prayer this morning is "Grant weather that nourishes all of creation."

(a Facebook post from Mary Mappus Finklea)

Labor Day Contemplation and Prayer

How will you celebrate this Labor Day?

Will you spend today putting away your white clothes and your sandals?  I will not.  I wear sandals year round, and I have one white skirt that I'll wear until October or November.  But I am old enough to remember a time when we were not allowed to wear white to church after Labor Day.  It was just not done in the traditional states of the U.S. South where I spent my childhood--even though the hot weather would continue well into September and October.  Back to school meant that feet went back into closed shoes--no more sandals.

Most of us will probably not participate in Labor rallies, picnics put on by our unions, or civil disobedience designed to bring more benefits to workers.

Sadly, for many of us, it's just a day off of work.

It's a good day to celebrate all of the work we do, the work for pay, the work that feeds our creative spirits, the volunteer work that bolsters the spirits of so many.  How can we honor the work that nourishes?  How can we devote more time to that kind of work?

A prayer for Labor Day:  Oh God of labor and rest, we pray today for all who work in various fields.  Let the work be nourishing.  Let the compensation be consistent and fair.  May all of our colleagues be easy to work beside.  We also pray for those with no jobs.  Let them find the work they need.  We pray for parents who toil without pay, and everyone else who works a similar job.  Mindful of your example, we also pray for rest on a regular basis.

Towards a Photo Theology of Work

We labor in our various workplaces.  Gone are the mines and the mills, for the most part.  But our offices can be just as demanding:

Work even invades our bedrooms and other spaces that should be sacred.

In our quest for a theology of work, perhaps it is time to go much, much further back:

I envy the monastic schedule, with its balance of work, prayer, study, meals, and rest:

As we labor, let us remember that it's not only the worth of the work that gives our lives meaning.  Let us honor the ones that walk beside us:

Let us resolve to do the work that nurtures what is holy.

Poem for the Clean Up: "Strange Communions"

Here's a Facebook post I wrote yesterday, which I post here to preserve it:

"I understand why people are upset with Joel Osteen--although, if you read his books or watch his show, he is walking his particular Prosperity Gospel walk, which does not include caring for the poor. But lately I've seen a bit of grumbling about other Houston churches and their perceived hypocrisy--tax exempt status, so whey aren't they doing more? Having helped restore a church after a less damaging hurricane, it's not hypocrisy when you decide not to open your church as a shelter. It's not good hospitality to say, "Go sleep on that sodden, ruined carpet, and in the morning, we'll all eat spoiled food together." That's not walking the walk, talking the talk either."

That post, along with pictures posted by Bishop Mike Rinehart of the ELCA churches in his Synod beginning the hurricane clean up, took me back to the time after Hurricane Wilma.  The church to which we belonged sustained massive damage. I spent much of the next 6 weeks cleaning up that church. It was a church of older people, and there weren't many hands to do that work.

One day, about a week into the recovery time, I had spent the day hauling wet carpet to the curb after ripping it out of the floor, and I was wet, dirty, and bloody. The Bishop of our Synod appeared, dressed in casual clothes, an assistant by his side. I said, "Are you the carpet guys?" Oops.  The men bristled a bit.

Like I said, I'm fairly sure they were dressed in casual clothes. If the bishop had come wearing his purple shirt and his impressive cross, I'd have known he wasn't the carpet guy.

Later it occurred to me to wonder why I should be expected to know what the Bishop looked like, to recognize him by sight. He had never graced the church with his presence before. And unlike the South Carolina synod conventions, which don't cost much to attend, our Florida synod conventions are astonishingly expensive. Even though I was church council president of that church, I never went because I knew the state of the church's books. We could barely afford to send the pastor.

The Bishop looked at our damage, took notes, and left us with a case of bottled water and some tarps.

At the time, I remember wishing for a bit more help with the physical labor, as I went back to ripping up carpet and hauling it to the curb.
But later, I got a great poem out of it. That poem was published by North American Review.

It's part of a series of poems that imagines what would happen if Jesus came back in our current world and moved amongst us today. Long ago, a Sunday School teacher asked us what we thought would happen if Jesus came back today (today being 1975). Little did she know that I'd still be playing with that question decades later:

Strange Communions


Jesus showed up at our church to help
with hurricane clean up.
“The Bishop was so busy,” he explained.
“But I had some time on my hands,
so I loaded the truck with tarps and water,
and came on down. What can I do?”

“Our roof needs a miracle,” I said.
“Do you know a good roofer?”

“I used to be a carpenter.
Of course, that’s getting to be a long time ago.
Let me see what I can do.”

I set to work ripping up the soaked
carpet in the sanctuary.
As I added a piece of dripping padding
to the pile, I noticed Christ across the street,
at the house with the fallen
tree that took out both cars and the porch.
He walked right up to the door to see
how the household was doing. I dragged
sopping carpet, trip after trip, while Jesus sat
on the porch and listened to the old woman’s sad
saga. The rough edges made my hands bleed.

Good smells made me wander down the dark
church hall to our scarcely used
kitchen, where I found Christ cooking.
“I found these odds and ends and decided
to make some lunch. Luckily, you’ve got a gas stove.”
I shrugged. “Why not? Otherwise, it’s just going to rot.”
How he made the delicious fish stew and homemade
bread out of the scraps he found
in our kitchen, I couldn’t explain.
We went out together to invite
the neighborhood in for a hot
meal, even though they weren’t church members.
We all spoke different languages,
but a hot lunch served by candlelight translates
across cultures.

I dragged drywall, black with mold, to our dumpster,
and noticed Christ walking by the cars in line
for the gas station on the corner.
When I got closer, I noticed he handed
out fresh-baked cookies and bottled water.
“Have some sweetness.
Life is hard when you can’t get necessities.”
Some drivers stared at him, like he was one of those predatory
scammers they’d been warned against.
“What’s the catch?” they growled.
“No catch,” he said with that convincing smile.
“Just a gift of grace, freely given. You’re free
to accept or refuse.” A strange communion.

Jesus left while there was still
much work to do: new carpet to be installed,
drywall to be hung, fencing to be constructed
around church grounds. I watch him drive
his empty truck, followed
by some of the neighbors, away from the church.

The next time it rained, I noticed
that the long, leaking roof had healed.

Strange Communions


Jesus showed up at our church to help
with hurricane clean up.
“The Bishop was so busy,” he explained.
“But I had some time on my hands,
so I loaded the truck with tarps and water,
and came on down. What can I do?”

“Our roof needs a miracle,” I said.
“Do you know a good roofer?”

“I used to be a carpenter.
Of course, that’s getting to be a long time ago.
Let me see what I can do.”

I set to work ripping up the soaked
carpet in the sanctuary.
As I added a piece of dripping padding
to the pile, I noticed Christ across the street,
at the house with the fallen
tree that took out both cars and the porch.
He walked right up to the door to see
how the household was doing. I dragged
sopping carpet, trip after trip, while Jesus sat
on the porch and listened to the old woman’s sad
saga. The rough edges made my hands bleed.

Good smells made me wander down the dark
church hall to our scarcely used
kitchen, where I found Christ cooking.
“I found these odds and ends and decided
to make some lunch. Luckily, you’ve got a gas stove.”
I shrugged. “Why not? Otherwise, it’s just going to rot.”
How he made the delicious fish stew and homemade
bread out of the scraps he found
in our kitchen, I couldn’t explain.
We went out together to invite
the neighborhood in for a hot
meal, even though they weren’t church members.
We all spoke different languages,
but a hot lunch served by candlelight translates
across cultures.

I dragged drywall, black with mold, to our dumpster,
and noticed Christ walking by the cars in line
for the gas station on the corner.
When I got closer, I noticed he handed
out fresh-baked cookies and bottled water.
“Have some sweetness.
Life is hard when you can’t get necessities.”
Some drivers stared at him, like he was one of those predatory
scammers they’d been warned against.
“What’s the catch?” they growled.
“No catch,” he said with that convincing smile.
“Just a gift of grace, freely given. You’re free
to accept or refuse.” A strange communion.

Jesus left while there was still
much work to do: new carpet to be installed,
drywall to be hung, fencing to be constructed
around church grounds. I watch him drive
his empty truck, followed
by some of the neighbors, away from the church.

The next time it rained, I noticed
that the long, leaking roof had healed.