Sometimes, I can't make peace with what it is to be a human being. No matter your spiritual orientation, it is undeniable that we are spinning, suspended in infinite stretches of deep, black space.
It is day here -- light is pouring through my curtains. I am sitting on my couch, in my heated house, typing on a lone jade green machine, about to hit "post" and send my thoughts, as if by miracle, out to the world. I hear "The Wizard of Oz" playing downstairs. The movie was filmed in 1939. It has been displayed via every medium from reel to blueray, but our copy is on DVD. A featherlight, pearlescent disk that we insert into a player that plugs into our wall and, suddenly, the movie plays on our television (sent from Japan).
All this amazing connectivity in my own house, at this very instant. And, yet, we are spinning on this orb in the middle of space. And, we are entirely at the mercy of a delicate balance -- our planet, our sun, the planets that surround us.
It is calm and still here. The Earth is quiet. I can't feel the spinning. I am sitting next to Eleanor now. I am loving my children, like mothers have been loving children since the beginning of time. And, yet there are mothers just a short trip across the surface of this spinning, faceless, soulless mass crying out for their babies as I also have.
Earth shatters and shakes. And, someday we will stop spinning. With our limited understanding of space, we cushion ourselves and try to feel comfortable that it won't be in "our lifetime." But, what will that moment be like? Will some go before others? Will babies be entering the world? Will others be dying anyway? Will mothers hold their children as they spin off into space?
Suffering is universal. But, somehow we make mass tragedy out to be relative. We see a distance between our own losses and the great, grave losses of large-scale disasters. But, there are mothers and fathers in our world right now that love their children in the same ways I love mine. In the same way, they stroke their heads as they walk by. In the same way, they hold them when they weep over skinned knees. The precariousness of life is brought to light when streets are full of the cries of childless mothers and motherless children.
Qualified medics ship off to treat. Some of us donate money via our phones. Some of us pray. Some of us seek out other ways to help. But, how do we make up for the loss? How do we use the power of the human spirit? You won't find an answer here. But, in all our miraculous doings, we can't turn back time. We can't stop the earth from pulsating. We can't keep it spinning smoothly forever. And, we certainly can't keep human hearts from breaking.
