When Tragedy Strikes

When our daughter came home from school on Friday she mentioned that some of the teenagers at her high school were talking about the Tsunami warning in California. As is often the case with teenagers, it eventually turns into joking and laughing. One of the differences between teenagers and adults is in how we deal with fear. Teenagers tend to laugh while adults tend to act out in anger or by trying to over-control a situation. Teenagers are seeing the same pictures of devastation coming from Japan that we are seeing. As far away as Japan is, teenagers who live near the coast in California can almost imagine a wall of water crashing through the coastline and they can certainly imagine the feel of an earthquake because most of them have experienced one by now. No wonder they were talking about and nervously laughing about tsunamis. They feel some fear, whether they recognize the fear or not.
Most of us continue to be dismayed by the reports coming from Japan. Most of us cannot imagine the chaos and confusion and devastation that they are experiencing, let alone the ongoing fears related to a nuclear meltdown. As I was driving to work this morning, I was thinking about how helpless we end up feeling when tragedy strikes across oceans. We want to help in some way and we think about how we hope those in Japan would come to our aid if the situation were reversed. As I was pondering our feelings of helplessness, I drove through a very poor section of Oakland and saw several men pushing shopping carts looking for bottles or cans. As I watched them labor in the rain, I realized how easy it is to forget the tsunami of poverty that continues to wash over the city in which we live and work.
If you are feeling helpless and want to do something in term of Tsunami relief, I have three suggestions for you. The first is to donate money to the Presbyterian Disaster Relief fund and designate it “for Japan.” The second is to donate money or food to either the food bank or a local homeless shelter that has a feeding program. The third is to buy food that can be distributed (I used to buy bulk trail mix or cheese and crackers) and when you see a homeless person or someone pushing a shopping cart, pull over and hand them some food. Obviously none of these are long-term solutions, but if you need something to rid you of your feelings of helplessness, any one of those ideas would work.
As you pray for all of those in Japan who are suffering, remember to do the work required in each of your significant relationships because at any moment a tsunami of one kind or another can change one’s life forever.