Most of us have been following the news about the earthquake in Chile. I’ve never been through a serious temblor myself, though as a small child I once woke up in the middle of the night to feel the earth give a rapid shrug. A few glasses fell off a shelf. Nothing worse happened.

But we have all been through more than one metaphorical earthquake. Wars break out. Economies flutter and fall into recessions, or depressions.

There are personal outbreaks of instability. Family members fall ill or die. Fires destroy homes. Marriages break up. Jobs are lost.  Life projects fail.

No one sails through life without living through an earthquake of one kind or another.

I’m not going to impersonate a Catholic guru and explain it all, or prescribe remedies, or even painkillers.  Let’s make a start, though, by acknowledging that life on Earth is inherently fragile, and that we need one another. I’ve found that prayer helps a lot, because it can put us in touch with someone infinitely wiser than ourselves.

If and when you pray, don’t be afraid to be as helpless and as needy as you might feel. We come to God as small children to a loving father. That’s who we are. As a man on Earth, He too felt the ground tremble.

MITES

Earth has furrowed up her skin,
A wave that spreads across her face,
Feel the fire blushed within
As land and ocean interlace

Fingers clench and then let go,
A knuckle or a wrist bone snaps
Shaking cities to and fro,
And even continents perhaps

The mites that live inside a lash
Must feel the like when someone winks,
The lashes and the eyelids thrash,
And who’s to know what they might think?

But they’re secure inside a lair
Those dwellers on a human hair,
We who live outside the pores
May tremble in and out of doors