I lost it for a moment

[autopilot]

I'm sure most of you, like me are following all the coverage of the Japanese earthquake & tsunami aftermath to one degree or another. That first day or so, I was transfixed watching the severity of the devastation inflicted on Japan and it's people. I was floored by the numbers---the specs., if you will about the quake itself and the crustal shift, etc. But, I noticed that through all of it (or at least most of it) that the spirit of the Japanese people shown through...they were relatively calm, orderly, patient, controlled and typically disciplined even in the face of adversity. I was humbled to witness that, knowing from our experiences with Katrina and the BP disaster what a lack of calm and discipline looks like. I was proud of them, proud for them; that led me, more than any thing else (I think), to pray more earnestly than I have about a lot of things in quite a while.

 

Which brings me to the situation which spawned the title of this post and the need to write about it. I was watching the 6:00 or 7:00 pm news today and a small newscrew & reporter (Diane Sawyer I think it was) was in a pretty heavily devastated area, when they came upon a small family of Japanese sitting outside, eating. What got to me, almost instantly when I saw it, was the father stood up, half bowing in usual Japanese fashion and offered the newspeople part of their food.....................

 

They were sitting there with nothing but utter devastaion as far as the eye could see; surrounded by the rubble of their world as they had known it. They didn't have a lot of food, and yet, out of their need and their lack they offered part of what they had to this western news crew, in their fine western clothing; any of whom probably made more in a week than that man did in a year. I choked and teared up, not for the man and his family, though life will be a challenge for the forseable future for them, I cried not for them, but for us.

 

This little Japanese man, this family, this people deserve EVERY last bit of respect we have to give; every last bit of help we can render and EVERY prayer we can muster. By all accounts, it is going to take years for Japan to recover from this disaster, which isn't entirely over yet! So, I will pray daily for Japan, for this man and his family, who offered of his meager meal and I will imagine that every Japanese person affected by this tragedy is just like him proud yet humble, friendly, giving selfless (whether the rest really are or not isn't important) I want to think of them all in that way and pray my very best prayers for them and hope against hope that a little bit of the little man rubs off on all of us! There is still hope!

[mhaigwood]

Amen brother, well said.

[Kregerdoodle]

Thank you for that post!!

 

I saw that also, and it really made me think, I also noticed that for the most part there is calm, no Looting, no rioting, no cutting in food lines...I am not that calm in my normal work day!!

 

Prayers go out to these people, and God help us all if anything like that should ever happen in the USA..

 

K

[barend]

And thus he points out the depravity of the American media and portions of this society.

[Art708]

It makes you wonder where we've gone wrong here in America. The first thing that you see here in the aftermath of a disaster are people looting. Then there are others who try to get rich quickly by price gouging the victims. You have to admire a society who can go through a disaster of this magnitude the way the Japanese people are doing. I hope that they can get their lives back to a liveable order soon. God bless and help these unfortunate people.

[Marcarl]

I don't want this to go political, or religious, but for the Japanese, religion is part of life, they intermingle daily life with their religion, no separation. In North America we work hard to separate life and religion, so, no state and religion, no school and religion, no business and religion,, religion is to be kept on it's own, hidden in a closet, so nobody else can comment on it, touch it, nor is it imposed on anybody. Life to some people is more than the the goings on on this earth, there is an afterlife, much bigger and greater than what is here in this earth. That's what they live for, so whether we we live or whether we die, the life here after is the important thing.

I could go on, but will not, don't want to screw up this thread.

Hope nobody else does either.

I will pray for those in Japan,,, and New Zealand,,, and Chile,,,, and Indonesia,,,, and Haiti,,, and other parts of this world that are getting hit by disasters,,,, as well as for the N. American people who you so well described.

[Blackjack]

It's called Dignity...

 

Terry

[Squidley]

Very good insight Steve, I too marvel at how well the Japanese are handling this monumental catastrophy. Like mentioned it's not over yet, and coming from working in the power generation industry I cringe at what those mechanics and operators are going through with a more than likely core meltdown. I have nothing but respect for all the people affected by the quake and sunami, I hope that we here in this country learn something from the Japanese....God Bless all of them.

[Aimhigh]

I don't want this to go political, or religious, but for the Japanese, religion is part of life, they intermingle daily life with their religion, no separation. In North America we work hard to separate life and religion, so, no state and religion, no school and religion, no business and religion,, religion is to be kept on it's own, hidden in a closet, so nobody else can comment on it, touch it, nor is it imposed on anybody. Life to some people is more than the the goings on on this earth, there is an afterlife, much bigger and greater than what is here in this earth. That's what they live for, so whether we we live or whether we die, the life here after is the important thing.

I could go on, but will not, don't want to screw up this thread.

Hope nobody else does either.

I will pray for those in Japan,,, and New Zealand,,, and Chile,,,, and Indonesia,,,, and Haiti,,, and other parts of this world that are getting hit by disasters,,,, as well as for the N. American people who you so well described.

 

[KarlS]

I believe it was an CNN crew they showed walking up to an elderly man and handing him a large bag of food, the first thing the man does is open the bag and start passing the food out to whoever walked by. Like others said, no looting, no cutting in lines, no fighting or stealing from others. News shows people standing in line for hours holding children and no complaining at all. Amazing people, we could learn a lot from their actions.

[Ky. Rider]

We could learn alot from the Japanese society. I recently had a family member return from a visit to Japan and they commented on how noticeably friendly and helpful the people were and how clean their country was. They noted that they saw absolutely no trash on the ground anywhere, not so much as a gum wrapper. We as a whole are a sloppy society and are more about government handouts than pride as a people. The above posts are well said!

[saddlebum]

We could learn alot from the Japanese society. I recently had a family member return from a visit to Japan and they commented on how noticeably friendly and helpful the people were and how clean their country was. They noted that they saw absolutely no trash on the ground anywhere, not so much as a gum wrapper. We as a whole are a sloppy society and are more about government handouts than pride as a people. The above posts are well said!

And yet sadly our sociaty will not change. The greedy will get greeder, the struggling will struggle harder and the poor will get poorer while north american governments slowly errode our rights and freedoms as we watch. Continuely taxing the working class into oblivian, while giving handouts to the wealthy.

[barend]

And yet sadly our sociaty will not change. The greedy will get greeder, the struggling will struggle harder and the poor will get poorer while north american governments slowly errode our rights and freedoms as we watch. Continuely taxing the working class into oblivian, while giving handouts to the wealthy.

 

Ben, Ben, Ben, Ben, Ben ............

[cecdoo]

It's called Dignity...

 

Terry

 

 

and Honor...

 

 

Craig

[Iowa Guy]

It makes you wonder where we've gone wrong here in America. The first thing that you see here in the aftermath of a disaster are people looting. Then there are others who try to get rich quickly by price gouging the victims. You have to admire a society who can go through a disaster of this magnitude the way the Japanese people are doing. I hope that they can get their lives back to a liveable order soon. God bless and help these unfortunate people.

 

USA is a big country and there are different reactions to disaster in different areas. We have 100 or 500 year floods about every 15 years in the upper Mississippi area like when 400 city blocks of Cedar Rapids were flooded in 2008. Very little misbehavior is displayed. People just come together and do what they need to do. Please don't condemn the entire USA because of what a few people in a few areas of the country do. Unfortunately, it is likely that we will see soon how folks in Northern California will deal with earthquakes and giant waves.

 

Iowa Guy