Hurricane day

I can tell the hurricane is coming. I tried to turn off the window fan in the kitchen; it wasn’t on, but the wind was blowing cold air in from outside. My sinuses are throbbing; the barometer is obviously dropping.

Call this entry my hurricane day journal until if-and-when the power goes out.

I am actually excited about the hurricane, less any damage it does. Spent much of my early childhood in New Orleans, so this isn’t my first hurricane, unlike some of my worried neighbors. A good day to read Psalm 148. Or Psalm 107:23-47 and spare a little prayer for the Coast Guard.

1300 ET. Cloudy, windy, light rain. Went up to the roof to take pictures. Will post later.

1408 ET. Amid my other work, I found a Universalist hymn appropriate to the occasion. See “continue reading” for a hymn “During or after a Great Storm” by Universalist minister Edwin Hubble Chapin. More ibuprofen, tea, and hot towels for the sinuses.

1753 ET. More wind, and steady rain. The lights flicker, and after talking to church members in the area, it seems that we can look forward to a minimum of intermittent outages.

1814 ET. Another liturgical gift: one of the “Special Prayers at Sea” from the Universalist prayerbook, The Gospel Liturgy. I can easily imagine this little suffrage being used aboard ship in times of distress.

“During or after a Great Storm”

Amid surrounding gloom and waste,
From nature’s face we flee;
And in our fear and wonder haste,
O nature’s Life to thee!
Thy ways are in the mighty deep;
In temptests as they blow;
In floods that o’er our treasures sweep;
In lightening and the snow.

Though earth upon its axis reels,
And heaven is veiled in wrath;
Not one of nature’s milling wheels
Breaks its appointed path;
Fixed in thy grasp, the sources meet
Of beauty and of awe;
In storm or calm, all pulses beat
True to the central law.

Thou art that law, whose will be done,
In seeming wreck or blight,
Sends the calm planets round the sun,
And pours the moon’s soft light.
We trust thy love; thou best dost know
The universal peace;
How long the stormy force should blow,
And when the flood shall cease.

And though our path around some form
Of mystery ever lies,
And life is like the calm and storm
That checker earth and skies
Through all its mingling joy and dread,
Permit us, Holy One,
By faith to see the golden thread
Of thy great purpose done.

common meter double (8.6.8.6.8.6.8.6.)

994 in Hymns for Christian Devotion, new edition (Universalist Publishing House, 1871)
Edwin Hubble Chapin

“Protection and Deliverance”

Eternal Father, who alone spreadest out the heavens, and rulest the raging of the sea: Let the protection of Thy guardian power be continually over and around us. From lightening and tempest, from fire and pestilence, from discord and all mischeif, from the violence of enemies, and from shipwreck.

Good Lord, deliver us.

Preserve us, we beseech Thee, in all the perils of the deep, and bring us safely to the haven of our desire, in thankful memory of Thy great goodness.

Yet, O God most merciful, do Thou specially save us from any denial of Thee, though we perish. From an evil heart of unbelief, and from the bitter bondage of the fear of death.

Good Lord, deliver us.

From Gospel Liturgy, “Prepared by the direction of the General Convention of Universalists.” Page 159. Boston: Universalist Publishing House, 1871.