Like people the world over, I watch in horror at the devastation in Japan and the unfolding difficulties to come. I don’t know what to do to help beyond praying, pausing to offer moments of heartfelt Reconnective Healing, and praying some more. What I see on TV looks like miles of piles of splintered pick-up-sticks and debris, but I can only imagine what it’s really like in person. Could I endure something like that?
My mind goes to the children whose world has crumbled, to the elderly who no longer have shelter from the cold, to the animals that were harmed and abandoned, to the ocean’s inhabitants who now share their home with the after effects, and to what must be profoundly palpable, gut-wrenching and ongoing grief and fear.
Earthquake, tsunami, nuclear reactions…a one, two, three punch that requires enormous courage to stand back up from. But if anyone can do it, it would seem to be the Japanese. Along with the devastation being played out in the media, there are humbling scenes that show people pulling together to help each other, of children laughing and running the way children should, of orderly lines of people waiting patiently for basic services, and of selfless workers rummaging through debris and going willingly into dangerous places.
We have so much wealth in America and our wealthiest people have enormous sums to give. How fulfilling it must be to contribute riches and significantly impact need of this magnitude, but there are throngs the world over who can give something. Wherever we are along the continuum, let’s give what we can, in whatever way we can.
Ask: Am I my brother’s keeper?
Be still, and know…
©Maria K. Benning, M.Ed.
HCC-Austin Chapter President
