Lost and Found

Days pass, moving forward into weeks. I am unable to write, the action that comes closest to elation for me.

I feel lost, inert.

I am stunned, horror stricken, unable to gain momentum.

I check out CNN online for news; headlines reminiscent of Ripley’s “Believe It Or Not” my mother insisted I not visit as a kid. Still there is enough that is worthy of return, at times.

Once more, for the thirtieth time in one day, I check the weather report on my smartphone.

I feel upside down and think myself like Humpty Dumpty, yet am unable to make any sense of the “why.”

Again to CNN before my work day officially begins.

Then it comes to me; the items that seize my somewhat jaded attention.

Hundreds of high school students meet a terrifying, heart-rending death aboard a sinking holiday-intended ferry boat in South Korea; the missing plane, Malaysia 370, close to twenty deaths so far in the Midwest, resulting from tornados.

I think back on the datelines, especially the ferry boat sinking.

Where was I? Where were you? Where are they, the victims, and the thousands of friends and relatives of the victims of these catastrophes?

I look outside my bedroom window. The sun shines and I contemplate taking a midday break to do my mountain road walk. It seems the temperature will be warm enough.

I am grateful to be alive and have sunshine this day!

Reflecting on recent days past, I remember that my car was hit by a deer, not long before that ferry boat began to sink.

Also, I had, then, just located several long lost relatives but had not, yet, been able to see them; losses and gains.

I have been unable to write, have had nothing to say.

I picture an equivalent number of deer on my front lawn as have died in that ferry boat sinking.

I feel sick, horrified. How has humankind come to this with all its many advantages? In particular, if the captain, crew and others are culpable?

Then an email arrives from a journalist friend. A soon-to-be-published editorial comment, enclosed, affirms my own values of people for one another, not divided. The piece reminds me that in a world in which we “swim in a culture rife with polarization and fragmentation,” it doesn’t need to be this way.

I realize I am among the fortunate to have friends like this who are, every day doing their best to be the “possible human in the possible society.” All is not lost.

The words of “Amazing Grace” come to my mind, prompting me to think of New Horizons’s new Sohbet/study group and the synergy budding there among participants.

The Sohbet/study group is a new endeavor, but already it is a place where I can find myself, albeit briefly and intermittently. Even now it is becoming important to me; a port where, for a time, though by conference call connection, lost me becomes found me as we work, together, intending to turn lead into gold, traveling with others.

I wish I could take the whole group home with me.

I pray those who have or are lost through these tragedies, too, are, not only lost but  found.