Hurricane. Flood. Earthquake.

A tsunami. Hurricane after hurricane. Floods. Landslides. Fire season. Earthquakes where the aftershocks are pretty huge as well.

Dear husband murmurs jokingly, "It's the end of the world!"

It's an awful lot of natural disasters affecting a lot of people and places, some pretty close to home and others simply devastatingly huge. I'm thinking more and more that the morning alarm bell is ringing to wake at least some of us up. Wake up and smell the coffee. Wake up and see the needs. Wake up and respond, help, take action for other human beings. Wake up and breathe deeply the freshening breeze of my life connected with others, near and far.

...No man is an island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main. If a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe is the less, as well as if a promontory were, as well as if a manor of thy friend's or of thine own were. Any man's death dimishes me because I am involved in mankind, and therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee....

From Meditation 1, by John Donne

Please pray for, and help, the people affected by this weekend's earthquake in India, Pakistan, and Kashmir. I am impressed more and more by the work of Episcopal Relief and Development, both in immediate post-disaster relief and in long-term work all over the USA and the world.