The Hills Are Alive
Today I am grateful for my co-workers and our shared experiences, for the work ethic I was taught by my parents, and for new green life.
On my commute to work, I cross the Mississippi River and head up a long hill out of town. That hillside has been gray and brown for months. I have been itching for green and it is getting here. The daylight is coming earlier, so when I headed to work on a sunny morning yesterday it looked like those riverside hills and bluffs were indeed alive-alive with green. It has been a beautiful last few days. The green is fresh and vibrant and one of my favorite things about this time of the year.
A few minutes after appreciating the hills of green, I had NPR on my radio to catch the news headlines and heard the latest on the earthquake in Nepal. It was such a shift . . . from the hills are alive with green to the hills are a place of . . . devastation, disaster, death, injury, grief, need. Such a dichotomy. Such a shift.
The death toll is over 5,500 and expected to rise. Supplies are desperately needed in hard to reach places. And yet, there was the huge crowd that gathered to witness a teenage boy being rescued after surviving five days in the rubble of a building. From heartbreaking to heartwarming.
Life is like that. We never know what may be coming our way. What we do know is this moment. What we can appreciate is the here and now. We can live in fear for what might happen or we can live in the opportunity of what is happening, right here, right now.
How can I help? How can I contribute? Right here. Right now.
On my commute to work, I cross the Mississippi River and head up a long hill out of town. That hillside has been gray and brown for months. I have been itching for green and it is getting here. The daylight is coming earlier, so when I headed to work on a sunny morning yesterday it looked like those riverside hills and bluffs were indeed alive-alive with green. It has been a beautiful last few days. The green is fresh and vibrant and one of my favorite things about this time of the year.
A few minutes after appreciating the hills of green, I had NPR on my radio to catch the news headlines and heard the latest on the earthquake in Nepal. It was such a shift . . . from the hills are alive with green to the hills are a place of . . . devastation, disaster, death, injury, grief, need. Such a dichotomy. Such a shift.
The death toll is over 5,500 and expected to rise. Supplies are desperately needed in hard to reach places. And yet, there was the huge crowd that gathered to witness a teenage boy being rescued after surviving five days in the rubble of a building. From heartbreaking to heartwarming.
Life is like that. We never know what may be coming our way. What we do know is this moment. What we can appreciate is the here and now. We can live in fear for what might happen or we can live in the opportunity of what is happening, right here, right now.
How can I help? How can I contribute? Right here. Right now.
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