Gracious God, you are our refuge and strength, a very present help in time of trouble.ELCA Prayer and Worship Resources for Natural Disasters.
In the wake and in the path of Hurricane Sandy,
reveal your presence so that all may know your healing, hope, and love.
As one community on earth bound together by your grace,
inspire us to pray, serve, and help all those who suffer.
Lord in your mercy,
Hear our prayer.
UPDATE: Check out my favorite source for weather information, Weather Underground.
And for all who have been affected.
ReplyDeleteYes, poor Haiti. They got it again. Sister Sarah has more.
ReplyDeleteAmen, Ann AND Mimi!
ReplyDeleteThanks to all for your prayers! Keep them coming over the next few days. Sandy is set to make a direct hit to central and coastal NJ and southeastern PA which is where I am. I very well may not be on line for a time. Power outage is almost definite. My major concern -- the large trees on my property.
ReplyDeleteGod be with all who are in the path of this storm!
whiteycat, I will keep the prayers coming. God be with you. I know so many in the path of the storm.
DeleteAre you suggesting that if we don't pray, we'll get hit worse? OR that your prayers are stopping something even worse?
ReplyDeleteI've never understood the rationale for praying to stop something that the planet cannot help doing. Should there be no people in its path? Fewer people? Are the people in its path especially sinful?
Makes absolutely no sense.
No and no. We're not praying to stop the storm. We pray for the people who have been or will be affected by the storm. That we choose to pray has nothing to do with whether our prayers make sense to you.
DeleteHello Turnip Ghost......I think you have our need to pray totally wrong....As a christian I am fully aware that the planet is and will continue to be under attack...my prayers are for the people in the path of the storm to have the strength needed....and yes we are ALL sinful, not just those in its path....
DeleteWhy not look for a church in your area to get the answers to your questions...its good that you do ask questions, if I hadnt asked the same type of questions many yrs ago then I woulld never have met Christ....God Bless you....Linda x
Thanks, Linda. Turnip Ghost visits periodically to mock our faith and prayers, and it gets tiresome. If I'm not mistaken TG is from Rhode Island, so I'm praying for him, too.
DeleteWe're not all like him, Grandmere. Most of us tend to go after the charlatans and bigots, ie. the ugly face of religion that I daresay you would like to see gone as much as I.
Deletehttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/10/29/hurricane-sandy-gays-same-sex-marriage-obama-romney_n_2038781.html
You see, Turnip Ghost, that's who you should be aiming for.
Acolyte of Sagan, I know you're not all like Turnip Ghost. He wonders from one progressive faith blog to another dropping his comments. I hope he's as zealous about informing the the likes of McTernan and other fundamentalists as he is about enlightening us. I wouldn't know, because I don't follow what McTernan et al. say. They are an embarrassment to all of us who call ourselves Christians.
DeleteWe all get 'em, and they do the neither of us any favours. I can hardly deny it, what with the evidence right there at the top of this thread! Maybe one day he'll learn the difference between having a civil discussion with decent people, and being an ill-mannered little git.
DeleteI use to live in New Jersey though not right on the shore (one town in and up a fair bit in elevation). I hope everyone has gotten off the barrier islands and shore from Sandy Hook on south to Cape May though it looks like some are trying to ride it out in Atlantic City (not a good idea).
ReplyDeleteI hear the Outer Banks of North Carolina took a bad beating. The people on the islands and the coast further north should move inland. The tides are high already with the nearly full moon, and the storm surge will bring in more water.
DeleteIt doesn't seem that long since the last major hurricane threat. Wasn't that only about a month or so ago? ... :(
ReplyDeleteThe National Hurricane Center has extended the hurricane season, which once ended in September, through to December. Climate change? No hurricane has struck the US this late in the year in my memory.
DeleteAs it happens I'm reading Al Gore's 'Earth in the Balance' at the moment. He was warning about this kind of thing and backing up his warnings with solid evidence over 20 years ago, and was derided as a scaremonger. Sadly, unless big business and governments realise that short-term profits are not as important as the long-term health of the planet, global warming denial will remain the status quo.
DeleteNo way will I believe that the more frequent occurrences of violent weather are not the result of climate change. Those who sow the wind will reap the whirlwind.
DeleteTo be totally accurate, it has to be pointed out that climate change is a perfectly natural, ongoing process, as has been proven by examining deep-core ice samples from the poles, from analysing chemical and growth changes in the rings of trees preserved in bogs, from fossil examination and from many more methods; our problem is man-made climate change. A mere technicality maybe but it is an important distinction, and one that the deniers (whatever their agenda) don't hesitate to exploit. And to think that 'man-made' used to be something to be proud of!
DeleteUnfortunately, whilst those who are sowing the wind may feel an uncomfortable little draught now and then, the real whirlwind will be their legacy to generations still unborn.
Acolyte of Sagan, I know climate change is a natural phenomenon, e. g. the Ice Age, warmer periods when the southern half of the US was under water, but if there is a natural warming trend happening now, then I think we are hastening the process, and the results, for the most part, don't seem to be favorable.
DeleteRomney is concerned about handing down the financial debt to the unborn but not about the legacy from burning fossil fuels, polluting oceans, rivers, streams, and groundwater, and other destructive actions by humans. Whatever benefits big business is good for the world.
I know that you knew that, but it's something that I can't point out often enough; the more people that see it, the less susceptible they'll be to the word-games of the deniers.
Delete"but if there is a natural warming trend happening now, then I think we are hastening the process"
The current warming is almost entirely through man-made change, and is directly linked to our pumping 200 million years worth of locked-away CO2 into the atmosphere in a mere 200 years or so. The natural cycle of climate change and corresponding rising and falling of CO2 levels have fluctuated within a very narrow range since the end of the last ice-age; the fluctuations would barely register as a blip on a graph (with the obvious exceptions of the couple of years immediately following the massive volcanic episodes throughout history, but the levels soon reverted back to their stable state). But in the last two centuries the peaks of heat and CO2 levels just continue to climb, and the upward curve is getting steeper year-on-year, showing a rise which has no precedent.
All of which suggests that the current global climate crisis is almost entirely of our own making. As things stand, if there were an urgent, world-wide effort to stop pumping out greenhouse gasses then the planet should be able to recover its equilibrium over the next several century or two, but if nothing is done very soon then it is most likely that the global climate will pass its 'tipping point', leading to unstoppable runaway warming. And if anybody wants to know what that will lead to, all you need do is look to Venus!
Thanks for the lesson...seriously. I did not know all you've said, and we do need to get serious soon.
Delete"over the next several century or two"
ReplyDeleteDOH! 'That 'several' is superfluous. Bed-time, methinks.
Goodnight all.
Heavens to Betsy! You burn the midnight oil far past midnight. For the next week we are only 5 hours apart in time until we change to DST next Sunday.
DeleteInsomnia aggrevated by a knackered spine and old-age, Grandmere. Not like the good old days when if I were still awake at this time of night, mischief was assuredly afoot ;-)
DeleteAlas, not a good reason...
Delete