OUR DAYS ARE NOW....

When I found out this morning about the earthquake in Japan, the tsunamis running through Hawaii and the ones headed towards the area where my family lives, of course I panicked. I called my mom at the ungodly hour of 4:00 a.m., ringing her phone until she woke up. Of course her being the woman she is, when she picked up the phone, she was worried about me.

Since that phone call a couple hours ago, everyone in my family seems to be just fine. My mother, my sister, my sister’s boyfriend, their children, my grandmother, step-dad, aunts, uncles, friends, everyone is okay. I heard from a dear friend of mine in Japan, she’s okay. Still waiting to hear from my people in Hawaii to get word on how they’re doing, though I have faith they too will be okay. For the most part, the people who I know in all these affected areas seem are safe.

So now, it’s time for me to pray for those I don’t know, for their safety and their peace, because when disasters like this happen around the world, it affects us all. Yet, I wonder why we worry so much about the way it affects us.

What I notice is how our society has gotten so selfish with our concern. We see things happen in other parts of the world and we internalize it to the point where we think the end of days for one person means we’re only one step closer to our own. Everyone is concerned with apocalyptic disaster. Everyone thinks about it in the back of their mind, and then when disasters like this happen, we start projecting those fears out loud, and it’s disheartening.

These days, we’re scared and it’s causing a great deal of distraction. We look at the earthquakes and Tsunamis and the end of other people’s days and use those events as indicators that our own days are numbered. And what’s crazy is, we don’t even apply some real logic or facts behind those thoughts. Instead, we just imagine the worst for ourselves when we see the worst that has happened to others. Our own fears are entrenched in some sort of selfishness.

What I try to do is not spend my time thinking about how events like these affect my own life. If I’m alive, then I’m good, and we should think of how that can be a benefit to others. Certainly I want to acknowledge the tragedies I see, but I don’t want to internalize them. I don’t want to think the end of someone’s life means I’m one day closer to the end of my own life. Not because it’s a scary thought, but because it’s a selfish one. Instead, I just want to pray for those who were affected, and keep them in my thoughts.

Far as I’m concerned, our days aren’t numbered, they are now, and instead of wondering when that will be no longer, let’s pray for those whose days are no more. For those of us who are alive, let’s be concerned but calm. We’re okay and alive, and with that we can do so much more than worry about when that will no longer be the case.