Today an earthquake registered as 8.9 on the Richter scale (apparently 3,000 times as forceful as the one experienced Northridge, CA some years back) devastated Japan – affecting hundreds of thousands of people, wiping out entire communities, compromising nuclear power stations, causing tszunami evacuations in cities on both sides of the Pacific Ocean.

The destruction is horrific, and no less so by virtue of the distance, the barriers, of ocean, language, and culture between “us” and them”.

The personal, societal, environmental repercussions are yet to be known and integrated into our understandings of reality – of this world so powerful, so mysterious and yet fragile.

We think ourselves on “firm ground”.  And yet this is, at any given moment, an illusion.

In response to the trembling of Japan, my own heart trembles, certain of only “one firm thing”:  the ability within us to access love in response to tragedy; love in response to loss and fear; love in response to life’s expected and unexpected violences.

So let us access love.  Right here, right now.

Join me, please.  Reach out in your thougthts and prayers to your brothers and sisters in Japan.  In Libyia.  In cities and homes around the world.  Relief efforts are already being organized by the Unitarian Universalist Service Committee and the American Red Cross.

Let love be your guide