They are the lucky ones, Wang Jhijun and his wife Li–they survived China’s earthquake after 28 hours of being buried together in the rubble.  Breathing had become harder as the hours dragged past.  Their bodies had gone numb.  Wang wanted to give up at one point and tried to kill himself by twisting his neck against the sharp edges of the debris.  Cold rain soaked them to the bone, as they lay there, their arms around each other.

Li sensed that her husband was giving up.  “We’re still alive.  We must be fated to live,” she told him.  They whispered to each other, speaking of their 14-year-old daughter–if they died, who would care for her?  They remembered moments of their life together.  They thought about the changes they would make if they made it out alive.

They lay there recovering in the hospital, in separate beds, Wang covered with bloody, pus-filled cuts, but no serious injuries.  Li had tears in her eyes–she had lost her left arm, after pleading with the doctor not to amputate it.  But gangrene had set in, and there was no recourse.  Still, they both were thankful.

Wang and Li did not have a “good marriage” by any standard.  He had just returned home two days before the quake, after having traveled around the country for 6 months trying his hand at various small businesses.  He had lost a lot of money.  He and his wife hardly ever spoke.  Ms. Li was raising the daughter pretty much on her own, while working in a chemical factory.  “My husband doesn’t have a stable life,” she said.

The quake changed everything for the couple, though.  Their daughter was unhurt and refuses to leave their side at the hospital.  Wang and Li have rekindled their love.  “The only thing we had was each other,” Wang said.  “We encouraged each other to live on . . . we said once we got out, we’d live a good life and care for each other.  Now we have a new start.”

How is it that we take for granted what is most precious to us?  How is it that we give ourselves to the peripheral and ignore the center, the heart of it all?  Sometimes it takes an earthquake of some sort–something that shakes us to the core–before we wake up.  It needn’t be that way.  If we had a mind to, we could learn from Wang and Li. 

“Calls to Consciousness”

Though our culture too often distracts us from what is real and vital, our spiritual lives call us to a growing consciousness.  as with all forms of growth, there is loss involved – but the gain is living with more depth and fulfillment.

According to today’s NY Times, Juneau, Alaska, is quickly becoming the greenest ever city, and the change happened almost overnight.  And how, may you ask, did the residents of this little far-North city come to come clean and green so quickly?  Well, it was the avalanche.

Electricity rates apparently increased about 400 percent after an avalanche on April 16 knocked out several large transmission towers which delivered more than 80 percent of the community’s power.  “People are suddenly interested in talking about their water heaters,” said Maria Gladziszewski, who is in charge of special projects for the city manager.  “As they say, it’s a teachable moment.”

How are people coping?  The public sauna has been closed.  (That would be a tough choice in Juneau, I would guess.)  One elevator is operating in the library instead of two.  The temperature in the convention center is down to 60, from the former 68.  Stores ran out of clothespins, because so many people started hanging their laundry outdoors to dry.  Even schoolchildren are getting into the act, as they voluntarily sacrifice Nintendo time, boasting during show-and-tell time at school. 

Talk about a teachable moment, folks–Juneau R US.  And what can we learn?  Human beings typically do not learn from words or even pictures (an inconvenient truth), and we will not pay attention until we have to pay money.  Please, please, political leaders take note: serious policy change is all that will save us. 

And what else can we learn?  There’s just a lot of stuff we could do without, if we wanted to save the planet for our children and grandchildren.  Maybe we should start now, instead of waiting for our own avalanche, in whatever form that will take. 

Growing up in a small town in N. Louisiana, I remember how sweet those sheets used to smell when I pulled them off the clothesline.  I wouldn’t mind doing that again.  Really, I wouldn’t mind at all.  

Having lived in Kentucky for years, I of course follow the Kentucky Derby.  Big Brown won this year, as expected, but the horse which captured the attention of the nation was the big-hearted filly Eight Belles.  Eight Belles was the only horse spirited enough to go after Big Brown in the final stretch, and she finished second after giving the race her all.  Apparently her all was too much, for both front ankles cracked just after she finished the race. 

Eight Belles didn’t stumble or trip.  Perhaps the track was too hard–we know other major tracks, including Keeneland in Lexington, KY, have been changed over to a softer surface in recent years.  Perhaps Eight Belles was not mature enough or strong enough to run with “the big boys”–rarely has a filly won the Derby.  Race horses often begin and end their time in the sun before they are fully mature–if they look good in a few races, they are much more valuable for breeding than for racing.  Huge sums of money are involved here.

So what is comes down to is that these magnificent horses, like most everything else in this society, are really first and foremost a commodity.  To see Eight Belles lying helpless on the track and to know that she had to be euthenized there somehow made me indescribably sad.  I kept reading the various accounts in the newspapers, trying to figure out what happened, why this beautiful creature had to die. 

I finally had to conclude that for me Eight Belles had become a symbol for something much larger than herself: a culture which will sacrifice spirit and life and beauty–all of which Eight Belles epitomized–to the pursuit of the dollar. 

What do we value in this world?  What are our lives really about? 

“When the Holy Breaks Through”

Our lives can cruise along in very much an ordinary fashion, and then all at once, something unexpected happens, and we are awakened as we had not been previously.  How can these epiphanies deepen and mature us, spiritually speaking?