Sixteen thousand six hundred lost souls...

Over sixteen thousand individual human beings have perished in Japan since the disaster struck almost exactly one week ago as I write this.  These are lives that have ended violently and unexpectedly.  People like you and me with hopes, dreams, fears, lovers, crushes, pets, jobs, siblings, hobbies, favorite colors, memories, good days and bad days... dead.

...The "Fukushima Fifty".  A group of anonymous engineers on a suicide mission into the radiation to try and slay a monster that can't be seen, nor, seemingly slayed.

...Lybia.  No-fly zones.  Lybians asking for help from the US and even offering to pay for it.  Surface-to-air missiles.  Rebels attacked. Genocide.

There were so many reasons for me to be happy today but I struggled to be my typically cheerful self.  It's St. Patrick's Day today but the collective jubilation of the day seemed to be muted in a subtle way.  I shopped for a dress to wear to a friend's wedding and I found myself irritated by my own vanity in the dressing room.  How can this be important when I live on the same planet with so many people who are suffering right now, on a daily, hourly basis?

Surprising, unsettling, shocking things are happening all over the world.  Natural disasters, man-made disasters, war, famine, disease, depleting resources, abuse, slavery, power struggles, fights for freedom, and humanity's greatest and most realistic fear: nuclear destruction.  It's everywhere.  Even if you turn off your television or choose to ignore it, it's still there.  And we are getting to a point in our collective human story where we are all affected and none of us can ignore the problems any more.  We can distract ourselves, we can drown our sorrows for a night but when a new day dawns, it's all still there.

I wish I had more answers but I only have one.  I hope you trust me on what I do know and I hope you join with me in opening to it as well, especially if you feel as helpless as so many of us do.  We must give love.  It takes nothing from you yet it gives so much.  We all determine what it means to give our love.  None of us are immune to what is happening.  Just as Siddhartha longed to know what existed beyond the walls of his kingdom and then ventured out to learn the ugly realities of life, we will all one day either seek to know the truth or the truth will come find us.  Let us be like the Buddha and seek the kind of enlightenment within ourselves that will, in turn, serve to bring more love to the world.  Because...

Sixteen thousand six hundred people just like you and me had no idea that their lives would end one week ago.

The families of sixteen thousand six hundred people had no idea that they would lose loved ones.

The community of sixteen thousand six hundred citizens had no way of knowing that it would be turned to rubble.

The nation of Japan had no idea that it would be ground zero for the greatest natural disaster in written history and the unwitting host, now, to a man-made nuclear disaster with no foreseeable conclusion.

As far and as wide as we will look for answers, there will be many experts with many answers and no answers just the same.  The one answer that does exist for all of us lies in the hearts of Six billion seven hundred million people.  And it is this:  The choice we make to love and take care of one another for as long as we are on this earth.  It is the one answer we will always have and we can always employ.  It is universal to every situation in every corner of our world.  Love exists in an endless supply.  As long as ONE of us chooses to do Good for another person, then I believe humanity is on the right path.

...The path to love.