global changes

I remember when I was first reading about this week's tsunami on Sunday morning. The projected death toll of 11,000 was shocking, and I remember my dad saying, "Oh, they always overestimate these things. That number is bound to go down."

Not only has the number not gone down, it has doubled daily. Today it is over 117,000 and counting. It is a number that staggers the imagination. All those people! All gone, in the space of about 20 minutes. Yes, I realize that considerable numbers of those people did not die instantly, but after struggle and suffering the likes of which I cannot imagine. But still, it seems that the population of an entire city was just vaporized. Here one moment, gone the next. With absolutely no warning.

Try as I might, I just can't seem to wrap my mind around this. It seems unreal. Even more unreal to me is the fact that the same wars continue and the same people keep on with their fighting just like before. With a disaster of this scale, shouldn't all of that be put on hold? For crying out loud, isn't this a lesson to us? We are not in control, as much as we might like to think that we are. Everything that we have can be taken from us in an instant.

I was on CNN's web site just now reading through some of the pleas that people have sent in, searching for any news of friends and family known to be in the areas hit. That's the closest I've come to actually understanding what has happened, to feeling connected to it somehow. My heart aches for every last one of those people...if the full magnitude of this thing ever hits home, I think that it just might break.