Firstly an apology for the blog silence - a couple of weeks speaking away, a couple of weeks holiday, and a smashed screen have not allowed much internet access - it's amazing how you can survive without the net when you have to! Anyway, I am sure that you are as relieved as I am that New Orleans has not been massacred by hurricane Gustav. (Although, I do also pray that places which don't have so much media-power are not suffering without us knowing). The next few weeks and months will see masses of clearing up, rebuilding, construction of new defences and warning systems and so on... What will be fascinating, though, will be to see if anyone takes an environmental line on the situation... and if they do, whether anyone responds. No one seems to doubt that Gustav has been exacerbated by climate change, but I bet the next time something like this happens we will see more pictures of 'SUV's queuing to get out of the city. Humanity does sometimes seem to have an aversion to treating the cause of problems when it is easier to address the symptoms. And as so often happens, what is true physically is true spiritually; we are blind to the spiritual catastrophe being wreaked among us, and unwilling to pay the price to address it, even when the price has been paid for us and all we are called to do is follow.