7.0

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Cyclone Nargis. Remember that? R___ does. He's writing from Myanmar, sharing about how the cyclone destroyed fresh water reserves and now disease is rampant. His one joy in the four pages of email is of a woman who let him know that she receives hope and comfort from hearing "sweaty Christian songs". He probably meant sweet, but then again, everything in Myanmar is sweaty.

C___ just needs adult diapers so she can wheel herself around her village with no fear of shame. The chances she'll get them? With embargoes and poverty? Slim to none.

And K___ over in India can't "pasteurize the thought" of people dying without a savior. I can't make sense of that, but there's a lot I can't make sense of.

A nation visitors have called "hell -- on a good day" shakes violently, a marriage of 30 years flickers and dies. A grown son commits suicide.

7.0 on the Richter scale. In thousands of places, millions of lives.

There are no easy answers. These are real people, not actors stepping on stage after time in the green room, not statistics in a textbook.

Say nothing of the indomitable human spirit. I've seen the human spirit, and it lies broken and refusing to communicate in a room darkened by choice.

An "act of God": the 7.0 and every tremoring aftershock.

And just as powerful and just as mighty are the acts of God which allow the human body to fight on, the human spirit to mend. An act of God that stirs compassion, extends hands, wipes tears, brings hope; so much greater than a 7.0.

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