67,000 (as of this writing.) Every morning I wake up and check the news and the number of the dead in the countries struck by this past weekend's tsunami has risen to another almost unimaginable level. It is, it goes almost without saying, sobering.
We speak blithely of the "fury" or the "wrath" of "Mother Nature" as if the elements possessed human traits and mortal foibles...as if, in this case for example, the earthquake beneath the surface of the Indian Ocean and its resultant, utterly inexorable wall of water were the result of some consciousness maliciously lashing out at the folly of humankind. We sometimes think too much of ourselves in that we project our own images and emotions onto things far beyond such foolish things as our misguided notion that the universe mirrors our collective ego.
Nature is what it is. It doesn't rise up in "anger" or lash out with "spite". It does what it does and we...its subjects not its masters...must then pick up the pieces of our fragile lives. So we mourn for those we do not know...would never have known. We send prayers to our Gods and money to those who will try to bring succor to the stricken...comfort to the survivors...peace to the dying.
And we will shake our heads as the number of the dead and the missing rises feeling that much more humble...and, not without some misguided but very real guilt, that much more grateful to be alive.
*****
International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies
American Red Cross
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