To Anyone in Japan

My usual address to writing follows moments, sometimes hours of simple or great reflection. I do not presume any distinction between the two, just that it is my way and gives needed direction in order for me to write. In this moment, in this hour with this heart, however, I write absent of any direction, knowing only, that I can do little else with feeling, that will not be put to rest.

Compassion isn't a thing we look for, it is a thing looking for us, searching for residence. It is the human compass looking for a helm. Today my compass steers me to Japan, where half a world away, anything less from me is insufficient to claiming citizenship in human kind . My imagination, as great as it serves the creative spirit, can not measure, the unfolding reality that comes to bear upon the people of Japan. Even in my writing I can not paint a picture adequate in conveying "the per square mile" immeasurable loss and suffering, uncovered in the very moment my finger meets the key. In the confinement of myself, I am imprisoned, restricted to what I hear and what the television brings upon the leisure of my home.

Whatever solace I find is in a knowledge that where I am, transcends any distance, any language, any past or future, any differences and any Gods or hindrances that would leave me unconnected from where they wake today. There are people, half a world away, now confronted by the worst that life can lay before them and though we have never met, I am engaged in a common grieving, an unfolding hope and a relentless prayer which begs from things invisible, whatever they need to meet the pain of another day. As I reflect upon the hours that will write their lives upon the pages of these unfolding moments, I am confronted with my smallness and the inadequacy of my life against so great a call. Compassion is all I have to give in the face of a suffering to large for me to grasp. But then, who am I to measure the value of compassion. It is better measured by those in need of it. It is all I have to give. When it arrives, I pray it find it's appointed home and that someone there, will feel as though we've met.