Prayers for Japan

   Our hearts are saddened by the horrific events unfolding in Japan!  First a 9.0 earthquake, then a three-story high tsunami, then four nuclear plants begin to melt down, and all of this with freezing weather and snow.  This will test the resolve of the Japanese people as never before.  Their entire nation is affected.  The entire world is affected.  Factories were damaged.  Supply lines interrupted.  Infrastructure damaged.  Uncounted dead and homeless people.  A potential nuclear cloud.  It boggles the mind, tears at the heart, and burdens the soul.
   If there is a message in all of this ... outside of the usual analyses of what went wrong and how to prepare for the next "big one" ... it is, once again, that life is precious and you cannot predict the future.  Horrible things happen to nice people.  Pay attention to life and those around you.  Expand the concepts of neighbor and friend to include those that you don't know and will never meet.  Those degrees of separation are becoming fewer and fewer.  We watch all of these tragedies on TV and the internet, bringing them into our homes and our lives.  They and their hopes and fears are all right there in front of us, staring at us through that electronic window.  We cannot be unmoved by these images.  They are compelling evidence that humanity is one in spirit.  When we feel those emotions elicited by our interaction with these events.  When we go onto Facebook or Twitter to see if our friends ... perhaps even friends we have only met on the Web ... are ok, and we do it because we are genuinely worried, we are strengthening those bonds between simple individuals and creating a New World Culture that will ultimately bring down the "New World Order" (really the old world order with new branding).  It isn't politics that will free us, it is culture and community, friendship, knowledge and understanding.
   We are all moved by the suffering currently being endured by the Japanese, and we are terrified at what Gadhaffi is doing to his people in Libya.  Suffering and death are suffering and death, whether caused by natural disasters or man-made ones.  Suffering and death will be with us for a long time.  It is reality.  And, it is the kind of reality that really sucks, but what to do?
   Pray for them if that is your thing.  Donate to the Red Cross if that is your thing.  Do nothing and you are alone.  We are all in this thing, on this little old planet, together.  Their pain is our pain,  Their loss is our loss.
OM MANI PADME HUM