The Instance of Time

My general intention with this blog is to learn what I can learn from local backyard observations of nature---and to write only what I observe first hand.   I will continue in that vain---but must digress today to comment on the larger natural picture of recent earthquakes the world over that are shaking our very foundations----from Indonesia, to China, to Haiti, to New Zealand, and now the worst of the worst in northern Japan.

While I try to keep my ear on the comforting post-earthquake words of the Reverend Dean Peter Beck of Christchurch Cathedral, which bear repeating, ("It was not an act of God. It was the earth doing what the earth does. The act of God in this tragedy is the hand of the people reaching out in aid to each other." ) still, the toll of such disasters on life and human society as we know it, and the question of how to respond from safe and comfortable distances, sometimes become overwhelming.  These are some of those times.   It causes me to contemplate the "speck of dust" nature of all of our existences and how one instant of time can change everything.

One effect of that is to put into perspective the miniscule nature of the daily struggles with which we often concern ourselves---that is---the insignificance of the event about which I posted yesterday (a tree root cracking the brick wall that holds up our front yard) in the face of the total annihilation of a city by a tsunami wave.

But the other more lasting effect, I hope, is to renew our commitments to each other in our daily affairs, and to resolve to make every human encounter one that improves the moment for the people involved---because that's all we can really be sure of---the moment---and we owe it to ourselves and to those within our sphere of influence to enhance those present moments.  dkm

The Shuddering Earth

"It was not an act of God. It was the earth doing what the earth does. The act of God in this tragedy is the hand of the people reaching out in aid to each other."

As near as I can remember, those were the inspired words of the Reverend Dean Peter Beck of Christchurch Cathedral in a radio interview after yet another devastating earthquake shook the good people of New Zealand last week. With those simple and memorable words he ministered to the world, even as New Zealand recovers from a larger quake only five months earlier---though this one is the more tragic, for the loss of life it cost.

This morning, on new spring birdsong from the other side of the world, I send my most fervent hopes and well-wishes to the people of Christchurch, Canterbury, and Lyttelton Harbour in New Zealand. And a small donation to Christchurch Cathedral---not for its repair, but for its ministry to the people there. dkm