Words are not enough.

The tragedies of Burma and China invaded my dreams last night. I didn't dream of fragile earth, water, and wind, but the fear, sorrow, frustration, and anger seeped in to every story. The tragedy those people are living through, the burden of loss and the weight of anger that has engulfed them, the fragility of life--both gone and still struggling--is crushing. I woke up sad, feeling lost and afraid, but I woke up.
These emotions are an everyday presence in the lives of people all over the world. I find myself hating their governments for being so dishonest and cruel. But what do we do--as individuals and as a country? How do we help? Aren't we guilty of some of the same neglect and waste and lies. Finding the balance in life--between putting hardwood floors in and providing for others. It seems like such a ridicules and embarrassing question to ask myself. There are children here in Tallahassee whose lives could be changed with that kind of money. What is reasonable? What actually helps? Because I want to help. I want to give children a chance to rise above their circumstances, to realize that they are capable of doing so. And I want to wrap my arms around those parents who have lost their children or are watching them struggle for life and must feel as if their own hearts have been ripped out of their chests. That they are struggling to breath and to survive that which doesn't seem possible to overcome. I feel only a fraction of their sadness and I wonder how they are not flattened by its mass.