In George Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four, most people agree that the climax of the story is when Winston finally breaks under torture and betrays his lover, Julia.
Do it to Julia! Do it to Julia! Not me! Julia! I don’t care what you do to her. Tear her face off, strip her to the bones. Not me! Julia! Not me!
I've written before that I believe the climax to be elsewhere in the book, but Winston's failure here is also a powerful and decisive moment. We may hate Winston for his betrayal and despise him for his cowardice; perhaps instead we sympathise and just feel sad that he has been so completely broken. But how often do we ponder the truth that has been rammed home to me as we are once again directly in the sights of what threatens to become a hurricane.
We are all Winston.
I can keep my spoken and deliberate prayers under control for the most part. I can easily pray that God will diminish, disorganize, disperse, and divert the storm to wherever it will do the least harm. That's my standard hurricane prayer. But I can't deny that at another level, my heart is crying,
"Send it somewhere else! Not here!"
