Rolling Along...

I originally wrote this Nov. 18, 2008. There was a little tremor that evening. A small earthquake about 20 minutes before I wrote the post. The computer USGS Site told me it was a 4.4 situated 17 miles out to sea, about 92 miles southwest of us. I didn't feel a thing. But Dennis, he felt it, and immediately went to check our hanging lamp which doubles as an earthquake detector. Sure enough, it was slightly swaying.

Earthquakes are one of those things that reminds us earth is not just a solid rock, but a geologically active structure. Reminds us that we humans are just a part of a very big picture, of which humans and other living beings, even the multitudes of microbes, are only an element.

In southern California there are raging fires accelerated by strong winds. Tearing through communities without prejudice for wealth or age or rank these fires are very destructive of homes and businesses and those parts of the infrastructure in their path. In 2007 terrible floods ravaged the area around the great rivers of America's heartland. And lest we forget, weather, earthquake, volcanoes and tsunami continually shape the entire planet and affect the lives of all the worlds peoples.

And while all these things are able to disrupt, destroy, and fill us with fear, at the same time they are the actions of change which have created the habitable planet. Out of tumult comes the future: fertile; strong; and different.

In nature there are neither rewards nor punishments; there are consequences. -Robert Green Ingersoll, lawyer and orator (1833-1899)

I think we can get caught up in seeing these things as "good" or "bad". View them as actions to be tamed or conquered... as if we could. I think we have pretty much discovered that the forces of nature are without judgment and cannot be manipulated for human purposes. So we are left with the mission, as the inhabitants of a volatile planet, to learn to prepare for what may happen without fear and accept courageously the challenges. This is our opportunity to show our humanity by working as a community, local, regional, national and world-wide, to support each other in times of need.

Of course, this can translate over into the hardships of our own creation as well. The tight economic times also extend world wide. Each of us will have needs and/or ways in which we can contribute to others. It will be a time to see if we stand as a community and come to each others' aid or retreat to protect ourselves from the perceived need of others.

All things will pass, the elders say. All things are temporary. Change is constant and our strength is in how we choose to work with it. It is opportunity to work for the better - no?