Prayers for Japan

Whenever there is a disaster in the world, whether a work of nature or of human intention, there are two common responses: watch with morbid fascination or turn away from the horror.  Since I am not a fan of horror movies, you can safely conclude that I do not watch in morbid fascination.  Watching violent scenes in fictional movies, I can only see a little bit before I close my eyes.

So tonight, as I watched an hour's worth of video and still photos of the destruction caused by the tsunami in Japan, I was sorely tempted to turn it off.  Then, I decided that I needed to see it, to begin to understand the extent of damage on the land and people of a place I have never been.  They reported that the main island of Japan moved eight feet and that the shock stopped the rotation of the earth for a fraction of a second!  I did not know that either would be possible.

In the face of literally earth shaking power, how small we are!  How could we possibly imagine that we could in any way affect what happens with our prayer and with our concern? When I pray, or you pray, or we pray, what do we really think that means?  Certainly God is not going to change everything back or bring people back to life again. 

It is hard to keep this horrific event in my mind, especially since it continues to get worse and nuclear power plants threaten to melt down.  Even as I write, I want to turn away from it.  Yet, a poem by St. Theresa of Avila, which I learned as a song several years ago comes to my mind.  One stanza states:

Christ has no body now but yours.

No hands, no feet on earth but yours.

Yours are the eyes through which he looks

Compassion on this world.

I feel deeply challenged to continue looking, learning, experiencing, and responding, because I am a part of the Body of Christ.  If Christ lives in me and through my presence, then I need to use my eyes, my hands, my feet to act with the love and compassion that I have known in my own life.  While that sentence might sound pious or glib, I find it both frightening and empowering.  I don't know that I will be able to face into what will be expected of me.  Already I have had my illusion of being in control and safe shattered by knowing that tens of thousands who felt the same way had their whole world and life destroyed in just minutes.  Whatever they tried to do, it was not enough to save their lives.


Prayer is one place where I need to bring this existential anxiety, to express it to God, to pour out all of my responses.  This is not easy prayer with nice words and poetry.  This is prayer filled with shock, fear, anger and maybe, eventually hope.  I might even begin to understand how to be "the eyes through which he looks (in) compassion on this world."

Bruce Calvin