Insight, Meditations and Reflections

Two disasters in the last two weeks have set me thinking about the sheer force of nature and human powerlessness. 

The 7.8 Richter scale magnitude earthquake that struck Wenchuan County in Sinchuan Province, China, on Monday has claimed more than 10,000 lives, leaving at least 26,000 injured.

The UN is saying that Myanmar’s (or Burma’s) Nargis cyclone of May 3 is likely going to swallow more than 100,000 people. Another 1.5 million victims urgently need food, shelter and healthcare.

While we individually think of our appropriate responses, I hope that the survivors will rise again, strong as the ferns, as they build a new foundation on the debris of devastation left behind.

Ferns reproduce from spores that adapt to dry weather. The Georgia Conservancy News reports that spores of the Resurrection Fern can survive a century of drought.

As the fern survives severe weather conditions may our brothers and sisters in China and Myanmar remain tenacious in the face of nature’s devastation.