It is hard to concentrate today. First there was a massive earthquake, then a tsunami and now a nuclear threat.
I had the opportunity to visit in Japan a dozen years ago. I don't know what I expected when I went there, but what I found was a place that reminded me very much of home, of the Pacific Northwest. From the antique wooden furniture in the houses to the majestic mountains and waterfalls that looked like the Columbia River Gorge, I experienced a comfortable familiarity coupled with the distinctively Japanese language and cuisine, paper walls, floor mats and ever so polite and respectful people. My mind keeps going back to their land, to the stresses they have experienced and the traumas yet to come as they bury their people and come to terms with a loss so big it is hard to imagine.
I feel their loss, not as they do certainly, but as a hole in the spirit of the world to which we are all connected.
As the nuclear threat increases voices from the proponents of nuclear energy in the United States are also rising.
"We are not like them." "Our systems are better." "Nuclear energy is the best way to combat Climate Change." "There is no need to be afraid because, we are not like them."
The Japanese people have one of the most technologically advanced societies in the world. I have been there and I know, as do others who have also been there. They are like us. We are like them.
In our day the world is very small. We can hear one another from around the world and watch as destruction overpowers whole cities far away. We cannot change our ways unless we feel their pain and know that it is our pain too. The world is one and we must learn from one another. There is no invisible barrier to protect one people from another. There is no shield to stop the waves or the wind as it moves destruction from one place to another.
Today I feel small and vulnerable. It is hard to concentrate. I believe the spirit is at work.
No comments:
Post a Comment