Missed My Exit

I don't know if it was prayer or not, but I was listening to NPR on the way home, the coverage from Haiti, and when a real live Haitian asked me to pray for them down there, I found myself doing it. Or at least I think so.

I was having the same delayed reaction I had on 9/11, when the day it actually happened it seemed borderline on comic. I couldn't comprehend the reality, and probably never could, but the lack of comprehension was profound and tainted with denial.

Then the next day, I have to acknowledge the horror. Three million people sleeping outdoors because there are still aftershocks knocking down anything resembling shelter. A country where the status quo would horrify the average American is suddenly knocked to its humble knees by a natural disaster that makes Hurricane Katrina look like small beer.

And it's not like they built these concrete and brick shanties in California: this area hasn't known much in the way of earthquake activity since the 1700s, and the last big one was before the American Civil War. They build shit to withstand hurricanes, sometimes they get four of those suckers in three weeks, they never had any reason to consider they would be in a monster earthquake.

I was coming home, on my way to pick up my daughters and an NPR reporter was on live from the scene, describing people who were lined up in hopes of medical care from some people who weren't really doctors. He was describing a girl covered in bandages and with only a sheet or tablecloth for covers. Her lips were quivering.

The reporter lost it, and I got choked up myself, in no small part because anyone who's a foreign correspondent has got to have a thick skin to even want the job. If he's horrified by what he sees...

Next thing I know I'm going to the exit past where I was supposed to get off to pick up my daughters.

And I still wrestle with the concept of God: these people need God if anyone does; but then again if there is a God, how can such a catastrophe not just be out of bounds?