When Disaster Strikes

It's been two days since the world turned upside down for thousands of people in Japan.  Two days of the rest of the world watching, with so many hoping and praying.  So many people wondering if their loved ones were okay.  Waiting for news.  Hoping for the best.

I only know one person in Japan.  A man I knew shortly after college.  A man I had a flirtation with.  A very sweet, tender-hearted man.  And through the magic of facebook we have been able to reconnect.  We exchange very little, but I am able to get small glimpses into his life every so often.  I feel like he is still my friend.

Today I found out that he and his wife are safe.  And I exhaled.  Because in a very real way I had been holding my breath for the last two days.  Checking facebook more often than usual just to see if he's posted.  Offering many prayers and thinking of him.

Because that was all I could do. 

And when disaster strikes that is often all any of us can do.  Wait.  Hope.  Think.  Pray.  And amid all the horror that has been happening (and will for some time to come) there has been beauty.  Beauty in seeing the rescue efforts under way.  Beauty in nations offering help to other nations.  An unknown brotherhood discovered as earthquake and rescue experts from California travel to Japan to help their family in need.  And the incredible outpouring of love and concern.

There are people who are oblivious, I suppose.  Who don't know what's going on or take time to care.  There may even be those who think it's a good thing because of some prejudice they have or a hard-heartedness about human life.  But I don't have time for those people.

The ones I see are those whose hearts are breaking open full of love and concern.

And while the word disaster generally makes us think of massive things, disasters can also be tiny in scale.  It can be a disaster even if it only affects a few people.  The loss of a child.  Receiving a diagnosis of a terrible disease.  Watching Alzheimer's transform someone you love into someone who doesn't know you.  So many things.

I hope we remember to allow our hearts to be broken open for those disasters, too.  Because while we can't save the world, we can touch lives. 

I can't fix the buildings that fell down.  I can't give everyone clean drinking water.  I can't bring back the people who were lost. 

So I offer what I can.  I offer my prayers because I never run out -- I have enough for everyone.  And I offer my heart.  Because no matter how full it is, no matter how many people I hold in my heart, there is always room for one more.

This is Just a Crisis

So, I got some great words of wisdom from a dog recently.  Okay, it wasn't really from a dog.  It was in a book written from a dog's perspective.  But this was a very wise dog.

In a difficult moment for his owner he said, "This is just a crisis, a flash in time."

I loved it.

When we hear crisis it is never connected with the word just.  Saying that it's just this seems to downplay it.  And that was the point.

It's easy to let a crisis take over our lives.  It's easy to get lost in the crisis, to hold onto it, to carry it with us.  But it's just a flash in time.  It's temporary.  Usually really, really temporary.

So if it's such a small part of life, why does it have such power?  I think it's because it's almost always painful.  We are always more aware of pain than lack of pain. 

Unless you've been in pain for a very long time I doubt you get out of bed in the morning and say, "Wow!  I'm not in pain today."  But I'll bet all of us have gotten out of bed and said, "I don't feel good" or "Ouch, that hurts."

I certainly do not mean to minimize crises.  They suck.  They hurt.  They can be devastating.

But we don't need to give them anymore power than they take.  And I think sometimes we do.  I know I do.

There have been times in my life when I was in deep personal crisis, I mean deep enough that my therapist wanted to see me twice a week and called me at home to check up on me.  And then something happened, something out of the blue, that distracted me for a while.  For a brief while I was not thinking about myself and my situation.  And the dark sky got a little lighter.

The problems didn't go away, but I seemed to have a slightly different perspective -- a little more power to go on.  It's not a cure, just another tool to fight with.

So, in my next personal crisis, I will try to remember that it is just a flash in time.  The sky will clear again someday.  Birds will sing.  And I will laugh.