Significantly Insignificant September 26, 2007

Today began like any other. As I stepped into my hot shower, I visualized my stress being washed away. A normal routine for me, I often find water to be soothing and healing. For some, showering is just another item on their to do list, a necessary step to prepare for the day. For me, my shower is my chance to completely let go. I relax. I unwind. Often I just stand there and let the water hit my skin, just to reconnect with sensory perception. Today though, my conscience was suddenly altered as I oddly found myself thinking of people suffering throughout the world at that same moment. It’s a dark thought, I realize, and not a cheerful way to begin the day. But as the water ran down my body I became increasingly aware that there are horrific, tragic, frightfully horrendous things happening somewhere at this exact moment, not even necessarily very far away, and it awakened a sense of accountability in me. Here I am in my shower, relaxing and unwinding. From what? As if I have it so rough? While I’m typing this… while you’re reading this… someone is being beaten, someone tortured, someone starved, someone violated, someone robbed, someone murdered… and so it goes. What are any of us doing about any of it? When my kindergartner tells me she’s “starving” for a snack, I realize (and hope) she’ll never truly know what starving really means. We live in our boxes, insulated and isolated from the horrors of the world. We deal with our own personal stresses and tragedies, which certainly can feel overwhelming. But at what cost? There are people that need us. There are people that need me. Need you. What can any of us do? And how may we soothe our sense of helplessness? Someone’s child is dying, and someone’s mother, and someone’s father. Someone has lost everything. Lost their job, lost their home, lost their mind. Someone is scared beyond reasoning, with no hope that life will ever NOT be scary. As I shower, with the hot water soothing whatever (in)significant stresses I’m “dealing” with, I realize how blessed I am to even have a shower. To even have hot water. To even have plumbing.