Doan Mind Me: Storm storm storm!: "How are you supposed to feel when 80,000 people are homeless, an economy destroyed and resources are scarce?"

How does one cope with the news that thousands will die, be hurt or in some way have their lives ruined, perhaps forever?

I think all of us would like to be some kind of super powered hero able to battle storms or anything physical just to know we were making a "real" difference. We are physical beings and a physical battle is millions of times easier to comprehend.

It helps that the news coverage is scanty and we can witch a thousand other mindless programs and thank God it's not happening to us. We pretend it's not real. We let ourselves believe it to be unfathomable miles away and yet the world is a small place and we all live in it together.

It has always been hard dealing with such destruction, the knowing and the not wanting to care because caring hurts when you feel so damn helpless.

Yet what is often harder is the lack of reason, the total emptiness in the fairness column on the balance sheet and the granite hard and cold stoic: "events happen and all you can do is accept that".

I remember being read a passage that I can only assume is in the bible. Let me paraphrase it: Jesus is talking with some folk and he says what about the men who died when the wall fell on them? What wrong had they done? Do you think they deserved that fate (of course not) they and their families will not be given an explanation. It's like the answer is there is no answer "the exit leads in".

It's hard to live through a disaster. It's hard to watch one. They are simply a hard part of life and I am devoid of answers save: that which defines us as humans is not what we do, what we conquer or how we overcome but it is how we respond to that which is beyond our power. It is our reaction to the mindless random that shows who we really are.

¶ 8:35 pm