I want to help. I can't go there, have a mere pittance to spare, and it is not enough. I can pray. I do pray. It does not feel like enough. I mourn. How does that help?
One of my parishioners works for a global company that includes offices, plants and workers in Japan. She goes there regularly. She supervises employees there. One of her dearest friends in the world is there. Her heart is torn in two and all I can do is hug her and weep with her. It is not enough.
How is this effecting you? Are you trying to cope with the paralysis of ineffectiveness half a world away? Pray with me and share your story, if you would. I want to be part of something good for the people of Japan.
photo by Jason Kottke
6 comments:
I taught several years ago on the military base in Misawa, Japan, which is north and west of the quake zone. Of course, most of the people I knew no longer live there, but Japan still feels like a second home, and I visited many of the areas in the earthquake zone.
"Numb" is a good word to describe my emotions and state of mind. I keep thinking of "what if" I was still in japan, "what if" I had to race to get out of the path of the tsunami. I am horrified and grieved by the images.
I have a knot in my gut that won't ease, a visceral reaction to a world on fire. The list of concerns is too long even to begin, but to that now is added this horror, ongoing, lingering, with potential to worsen, perhaps exponentially, before it gets better. I have read enough about the global conflagration that was WWII to know that the sum of all we face today is not that, but it is horrible, and it is just too much! And so I join you in praying, though I know not where to begin.
my heart just aches. From that aching I wrote some prayers and posted them on my blog, which have subsequently been used around the country...so. pray is something I can do, and join you in praying...
The news keeps revealing more and more of this disaster. So many deaths and so much destruction. I lived in Japan when I was in junior high south of Tokyo at Yokosuka Naval Base. Praying in sorrow and in quiet.
I'm still numb, too. Prayer is about the only thing I have been able to manage, and even that seems especially difficult right now. Thank you for posting this.
I believe it helps by moving us to acts of compassion. It has also brought back the emotions of being 15 and hearing the news from Three Mile Island which was not far enough away.
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