Wakeup Call

I have been neglecting this Groundling blog lately despite having lots of subjects to address. It is a matter of time in busy days, and Lion Lamb keeps me hopping. Still, these environmental concerns are important.

Have you seen the photos of sharks in the New York subway following Superstorm Sandy? Okay, they were photo-shopped in, but the flooding and devastation are no joke. Most of us have been watching the painfully slow recovery for those severely affected by Sandy. Thousands are waiting for electricity to be restored after two weeks but many have no homes to which they can return. 

Here was a storm that had been downgraded first from a hurricane and then from a tropical storm. It lasted about a day. Yet millions were affected, billions in damage was done, and tens of thousands are still in limbo. If people have to line up for food in New York and New Jersey, what is it like in poorer nations to the south?

I don't like characterizing climate change as the coming apocalypse, a secular substitution for the dire claims of doom and gloom theologians. But the wealthiest nation in human history is having a lot of trouble responding to the effects of a one-day storm. When will we get it?

This Fall I went through Creation Time wracked by self-doubt about the value of raising the issues of Creation Care. Unfortunately I was convinced of the importance of doing so by what happened in the Caribbean and up the Eastern Seaboard. I want to be hopeful and honest at the same time, and to be creative in continuing to address the issues.

Has Sandy been a wakeup call for you, or were you already alert? Did the devastation call you to action, or increase your sense of helplessness? Does God want us to lead the way in the church?