Stop and think

We took a journey last week to an unfamiliar land. It was not pleasant, but in a way, it was an instructive trip, and it showed us some valuable, albeit difficult truths about ourselves. Don’t worry, I’m not going to start preaching. After the hard slap of reality this area has endured, we don’t need that kind of preaching right now. We have already asked ourselves all the questions concerning what, how, and why we were victims of such a disastrous event. We have taken the brunt of the initial shock we felt and dealt with it. We have admitted that we could have been better prepared if we had any idea it was going to be this bad. Now, what is needed is restoration and recharging; recharging of our mental and physical energy, restoration of our damaged infrastructure, homes, and businesses, and maybe most importantly, we need the recharging of the human spirit that must, and I am sure will happen to put lives back on track. The unfamiliar land we unfortunately discovered last week is a place of deprivation that is without the comforts and conveniences we have, over time, surrounded ourselves with. The journey was perhaps a crash course in the self-realization of how much importance we place on our own particular happiness, well-being and satisfaction. Whether you spent just a few days in this unfamiliar, uncomfortable land, or a week and a half, or maybe are still there, you understandably now have a heightened awareness of the basic need for the essentials of food, gas and electricity. That definitely was all in short supply. But then factor in the loss of the cyber-age “necessities” that we love and have allowed over time to become so important in our lives, and you begin to see the “manufactured” deprivation that we have imposed upon ourselves which only makes the crisis seem that much worse. These cherished elements of our modern world hang by a slender thread that can snap at any time, and that’s just what happened. Part of the deal for living in and enjoying the miraculous advancements of this twenty-first century world is the figurative acknowledgment and acceptance of the small print which says, if something is made by man, it can and probably will at some point, break down.

One day last week I happened to notice a sign on one of the many power-company trucks that was helping us out. The sign read in big letters “THINK, before you move.” It was obviously reminding employees and everyone who read it to be safe. But to me, it was the one thought that made more sense than anything else about the predicament we were in. We hear a lot of talk nowadays about moving into the “brave new world”. I guess that’s the mantra of a progressive movement, and you can interpret it however you like. But weeks like the one we just endured make me think we would be a lot better off to follow the advice on the sign of that power truck and think, before we risk moving into a brave new world or anywhere else right now. Progress has it’s place, but in a world plagued with uncertainty, now might be a good time to rely on the strength of the values, priorities and certainties that we have relied on in the past. I hope this nation stops and thinks about that. I am glad to say that in the grips of a very difficult time from which some will never recover, the people of this area relied on each other.

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