Reflections on the Tsunami
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| Marilyn Sewell |
by the Rev. Dr. Marilyn Sewell, Senior Minister
First Unitarian Universalist Church of Portland, OR
January 2, 2005
Call to Worship
Good morning!
We come together at the beginning of this New Year
To be reminded of our highest values,
To be inspired to bring our gifts
Of love and service
To the altar of humanity,
And to know once again that we are not isolated beings
But connected to others, to others
In this church community,
In the larger community of Portland,
In our nation,
And indeed to all others, all over the world.
Come now, and let us worship together.
Special Offering
We are going to take a special offering this morning for the victims of the
Asian Tsunami. There are special envelopes in your order of service for that
purpose. Make out the checks to Mercy Corps, which is a relief agency headquartered
right here in Portland, with is highly credible, so you know your money will
be wisely used. These folks were some of the first to respond, taking tablets
to purify water and also plastic sheeting for make-shift shelters. Give generously—government
money will be coming, but it will have to go through the proper channels, and
your gifts can be used right away. I’m asking the ushers to wait a minute
before coming down to pass the plates, so give you time to get out your checkbooks,
for those of you who want to write checks..
Sermon
I kept trying to work on my sermon this past week, on the announced topic,
and nothing really came to me—I kept running into one dead end after another—and
all the while the death toll from the tsunami in Asia kept climbing: 23,000
dead, 45,000, 80,000, 120,000, and the latest figures. Finally I began to comprehend
the enormity of this natural event—this act of God—as we call it,
and I knew why no sermon would come: I was trying to write the wrong sermon.
My heart had been shifted to a different place. So here I am with the only sermon
I could bring to you today.
A catastrophe like this causes us to pause and to reflect. We are so full
of questions, so devoid of answers. And so this morning I do not come to you
with answers, but I am moved to share with you my own reflections, such as they
are. As human beings, it is not enough to hear the facts; it is not enough,
even, to listen to the stories, because we need to make meaning, and the TV
and the radio and the newspapers will not help us with that—we must help
one another with that, and where else but church are these questions of meaning
better asked?
This tragedy happened right at the breaking of a New Year. The New Year is
always a wake-up call—we think how we want to change, typically we make
New Years resolutions—I know I do every year. You know, people write things
like, “I’m going to lose that 10 pounds,” or “I’m
going to exercise more,” or “I’m going to save more money.”
Mostly all about our own purity and well-being. All about me. But this year,
we have a wake-up call that is different, we have one of enormous and baffling
dimensions. In the face of the tsunami, our usual resolutions pale, seem trivial.
What is this tragedy calling us to know, to understand, that we did not understand
before?
One thing seems immediately and startlingly clear—it’s not all
about me. That is, my life is not all about me. Not about perfection of self,
not about purity. My life needs to be given over to something larger than that.
It’s not about shopping for that new dress or buying that new sports car
I’ve always secretly wanted. It’s not even about spending more time
with my family or giving more to charity—no, I think it’s calling
for much more, I think it’s calling for a genuine change of heart. What
this tsunami has done is to give us an opportunity—if we’re willing
to take it—if we can bear it, an opportunity to carve out a larger territory
in our hearts, to make room that we never knew was there, to seek a new definition
of brother, of sister.
We have this opportunity because this tsunami teaches us what we have in common
with all those who live—we are all at the mercy of forces beyond our control.
In the face of this loss of innocent life, all of us, of all nations and colors
and climes, are moved to ask why, and no answer comes. I heard a story on National
Public Radio yesterday that I want to share with you. Pearl Buck, the Nobel
Prize winning author of a generation ago, wrote novels, but also wrote children’s
books. One of those books was called “The Big Wave.” In this story,
which is set on the seashore in Japan, a little boy, Kino, is talking with his
friend Jiya, and he sees Jiya looking out over the sea. “What are you
looking for?” Kino asked.
“Only to see that the ocean is not angry,” Jiya replied.
Kino laughed. “Silly,” he said. “The ocean cannot be angry.”
“Yes, it can,” Jiya insisted. Sometimes the old ocean god begins
to roll in his ocean bed and to heave up his head and shoulders, and the waves
run back and forth. Then he stands upright and roars and the earth shakes under
the water . . . .”
“But why should he be angry with us?” Kino asked. “We are
only two boys, and we never do anything to him.”
“No one knows why the ocean grows angry,” Jiya said . . . .
Back to the poem by William Stafford, that Tom read earlier: “It’s
the way life is,” the poem reads. “Just the way life is.”
I heard an interview with a Buddhist monk who is on the scene with the survivors.
He was asked how he brought comfort to his people, who have lost so much, and
his answer was remarkably similar to Stafford’s. He talked about rituals,
precepts, meditation, going to the temple—but then he said at last, “We
can understand impermanence. The sun rises, the sun sets. Life is like that.
Any time, any moment, you may die,” he said.
Yes, we see the heart-breaking pictures, we hear the stories from those who
lived through the horror. The worst is the images of children, lying dead, rows
and rows of children. If we cannot protect our children, my God, what then can
we do? Something like the tsunami happens, and we see in an instant that our
belief that we have control, can provide order, is a fantasy—a fantasy
that makes it possible for us to live and just function in this world—but
a fantasy, nevertheless. We know we are mortal, once again, and because we see
so clearly that this flesh is so fragile, we are moved to question our own lives.
Are we living the way we really want to, out of the highest values we hold?
Are we loving as well and as widely as we can? Are we doing the work we were
meant to do? We should live, my people, as if we were going to die, because
in fact we are, and we don’t know when. The tsunami just gives us the
clear and abiding message, “Live today the way you wish to live, for today
is what you are promised. Only today.”
If we ask ourselves these questions, we surely must also ask certain questions
of our nation at this time.
Our citizens have responded generously to this crisis, as have U.S. corporations—the
administration less so, beginning with $15 million, moving to $35 million, and
being shamed finally into giving $350 million. Many other nations with far fewer
resources had pledged far more than we did, initially. So far 40 nations all
together have pledged a total of $1.2 billion dollars. But consider these figures:
do you know how much it costs us to carry on the way in Iraq every month? $5
billion dollars. Every month. And consider this, as well. Lancet, a highly respected
British medical journal, estimated several months ago that already at that time
100,000 people had lost their lives in the Iraq war. Most of these from aerial
bombardment. And I wonder how many more since then. The numbers of dead from
the tsunami and from this way are somewhat comparable. Questions: Why do we
not know about war dead? Why is there not an outpouring of grief for these dead?
I think all citizens of this country--all of us, whether from red states or
blue states--need to sit with these numbers, and ask ourselves, “What
are we doing? What are we about, as a people?” So much for destruction,
so little for healing.
We watched this natural tragedy unfold as the press gradually became aware
of the enormous proportions of this event. But what is heartbreaking is that
Western scientists had some precursory knowledge of what was happening but could
give no warning. Dr. Titov, a mathematician from Seattle who works for a government
marine laboratory raced to his office at 7:00 pm, sat down at his computer and
prepared to simulate an earthquake and a tsunami, but by the time he assembled
his digital tools on his computer’s hard drive, Sumatra’s shores
were already filling with the bodies of the dead and dying.
The scientists in Hawaii, at the main tsunami center of the world, managed
to send out a warning: they had useful information, they were trained to get
the word out, but they did not have telephone numbers to call in the affected
countries.
Geophysicist Barry Hirshorn was asleep when the tsunami hit—he was one
of a staff of 5 scientists at the Pacific Tsunami Warning Center. He biked over
to the center, where his colleague Stuart Weinstein was already staring at the
thick blue seismic lines. “This is a big earthquake. Maybe a 7,”
he recalled thinking. More data arrived, and the estimates of the magnitude
kept rising—8.0, 8.5, then an e-mail message from Harvard’s seismology
group, who reckoned the earthquake at an astounding 8.9. They tried to get the
word out—but they simply had no contacts in this distant world. They continued
to scramble to reach the countries that had not as yet been hit, but they did
not know how to make contact. Around 10:15 p.m., they finally spoke to the United
States embassies in Mauritius and Madagascar, which promised to warn Somalia
and Kenya, but it is unclear what became of the message.
So all these scientists and others watched helplessly as people in country
after country were taken unaware and went down under the wall of water. Ironically,
an Australian seismologist had presented a paper just this last year on the
subject, “Tsunami in the Indian Ocean—Why Should We Care?”
It seems to me that this broken communication could be a metaphor for our lack
of connection with so many developing countries on this planet. The have’s
and the have-not’s. The people with the knowledge couldn’t get to
the people with the problem. What are we to make of this? What can we learn
about lines of communication? The sharing of scientific knowledge? How can governments
and bureaucracies co-operate so that warnings can get out and relief efforts
can go more smoothly?
So many questions. Answers that are tough to come by. In the face of such an
enormity of loss, and in realizing the aftermath of help that will be needed
for months to come, we can simply grow numb. I know my response at times is
just to go quiet and feel nothing. We can feel completely overwhelmed. I heard
a radio story about two doctors getting on a plane with two suitcases full of
medical supplies—taking what they could, because it’s going to take
a week to fill a DC-7 with medical supplies. And the reporter said to one of
them, “Just two suitcases? Do you think you can be successful with just
two suitcases of medical supplies?” And one of the doctors replied, “No,
of course, we’re not going to be successful. The success is in the trying.”
And that is a lesson for all of us, in all of the challenges that life brings
to us.
One of my friends sent me words from the Talmud that I find helpful in this
time of incredible need by so many: “Do not be daunted by the enormity
of the world’s grief. Do justly, now. Love mercy, now. Walk humbly, now.
You are not obligated to complete the work, but neither are you free to abandon
it.” We do what we can do. Our true humanity is so revealed. And therein
lies our only salvation. So be it. Amen.
Prayer
We ask this day for consolation for those who have lost loved ones in this
natural disaster—we cannot grieve for them, but may we grieve with them,
for we know what it is to lose those that we love. We pray today that somehow
through this pain and suffering that lives will nevertheless be ennobled as
people give unselfishly of themselves and their resources. We pray that we gathered
here, safe in this sanctuary today, our loved ones safe, might walk each day
in thanksgiving—and might grow more compassionate, more feeling, more
committed to the good in this New Year. So be it. Amen.
Benediction
May you make this New Year the year of the open heart, may you covet the good,
and may you walk gently on the earth. Go in love and go in peace.
>>Liturgical Resources for
Reflection on the Indian Ocean Tsunami
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