I'm thinking about Japan tonight, as I often am these days. Watching the news soon becomes unbearable. And yet what strikes me most is the dignity of these people. The way they line up silently for food, the way no one pushes or yells or forces their way to the top of the line, the way they all seem to be aware that everyone is equally important. I heard on the news tonight that one supermarket full of people lost power, and the customers were all unable to purchase the food they so badly needed. But what did they do? They calmly put the food back on the shelves and left empty handed. Where else would this happen? Not in my country, and probably not in yours. Such grace in the face of so much sorrow. Somehow this gave me heart. Somehow it says, even in the face of such devastation, we still get to choose what kind of people we will be.
People often say we are all connected, we are all in the same boat with the same hopes and dreams. I can't always feel this, but this hour, this night, I do. This is an unfathomable sorrow. A sorrow deeper than tears. In New Zealand after the Christchurch earthquakes, the words 'Kia kaha Christchurch' appeared, spelt out in rocks, on a hillside. It means forever strong in Maori. So now I say Kia kaha Japan. But even from this distance, I can see that you already are.
