This morning I woke at 3 a.m.

to blinding flashes of light and thunderous blasts of noise.

But I had the comfort

of being able to lie in a warm bed

and listen to heavy rain on the roof.

So when I cried,

it was because I pay taxes to a country whose administration chose

to initiate war against Iraq,

to go against world opinion,

to alienate long-time allies,

to impose unilaterally its own agenda

(a complicated mix of insecurity, self-imposed isolation, and greed),

and to subject innocent people to blinding light and thunderous noise

from bombs that could kill them.

When my daughter Rachel came to find me

because she was scared,

I had the luxury of being able to tell her truthfully

that the storm that had awoken her

was not the one that would hurt her

and that she could go back to sleep.