I am relieved to have discontinued my subscription to cable tv (and the doubtless hours of CNN coverage of the Japanese earthquake/tsunami I would likely be consuming), instead choosing daily BBC reports and occasional internet updates. It simply doesn't serve me to bombard myself with disturbing images--I'm sufficiently horrified by the limited doses I receive. (I'm recalling the gruesome driver's ed. slideshow of vehicle injuries to which we were subjected as high schoolers--I didn't make it past "head wounds.")
There really is nothing intelligent to be said on such occasions. Not even much that's helpful. No, God didn't cause it. No, it's not further evidence of the "impending apocalypse." It may not even have much (if any) relation to our egregious abuse of our planet. It just happened. And here we are, our only task to "clean up" and recover what may be recovered. Find those who remain to be found. Comfort and provide for the suffering. Make every possible effort to contain this dangerous form of energy we've developed. When I consider the magnitude of even removing debris from one obliterated seaside town, it staggers me. Similar to the feelings I had when looking at those smoldering images of the newly destroyed World Trade Center.
And yet, that is what we do. Once the immediate human (and we hope, animal) crises have received the necessary attention, we snap into action, doing whatever it takes, for however long, to rebuild what has been destroyed. And with every such unified effort, borders and partisanship dissolve.
The best quote I've seen yet actually appears on the Salvation Army website. "We combat natural disasters with acts of God."
Amen to that.
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it may be too soon for haiku--Love and Light to our sisters and brothers across the ocean
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