A sisterfirend in SoHo has no access to her home. Another, in a comfortable space on the Upper East Side, says she is foraging food from her cupboard because her grocery stores are missing bread, eggs, toilet paper, and cheese, otherwise known as the urban essentials. Yet another wonders what she will do without electricity, since she has no batteries, no flashlights. Well, parts of it are shut down now. People are stuck in cities where they know nobody.
People can t get to stores, and when they get there they find nothing.
We failed to heed them, so we may be colliding with them now. For some reason, as we move into this period, I am reading the latter part of the New Testament book of Matthew. Its theme, it seems to me, is are you ready for judgment . I have struggled through the passages, reluctantly answering no , realizing that if I got tapped on my shoulder this morning, I d be called upon unready. Thousands of people got tapped on their shoulders on September 11.