The Boxing Day tsunami, which caused such destruction in countries all around the Indian Ocean, and took so many thousands of lives, has probably affected the whole world more than any other natural disaster before it. Because of TV coverage and news media photographs, the images of that day and its aftermath will long remain in the minds of people everywhere.
There are so many stories of heroism and sheer luck. The mother who ran towards the oncoming wave to reach her children. The father who saved his family by tying them to a tree with beach towels. The schoolgirl who happened to have done a project on tsunamis, and so recognised the warning signs and told the hotel staff, so that all the guests on that particular beach were evacuated to safety. But these are all tourist tales. We shall probably never know the many other stories of heroism, lucky escapes, but also tragic losses, that came upon the local people of those countries.
All over the world, ordinary people have been moved to extraordinary generosity to raise money for emergency aid and relief. People have responded far more generously than Governments, which is heartening, though not surprising. Perhaps there is a real hope, that out of all this suffering a new sense of world community may be born, in which people work to bear each other's burdens and help people in need. That is a great vision and dream, though already there are signs of returning to 'business as usual', as one of the Governments concerned begins to insist that its troops must be involved in all relief work in one particular region, to ensure that no aid and comfort is provided for anti-Government forces.
A disaster of such magnitude puts a lot of things into perspective. Our small day-to-day worries and difficulties are nothing, compared to the loss of whole families, or of homes and livelihood, suffered by so many. That was what motivated so many people to give away their life savings, in some cases, to the relief effort.
With the beginning of Lent, which is early this year, as Ash Wednesday falls on February 9, we enter a season of trying to put our whole life into a different and true perspective. One aspect of this, is to follow some spiritual discipline of attending worship, private prayer, Bible reading or study, so that we steep our lives and thoughts in God's truth. We will then begin to see the world with the greater clarity that comes from looking at things in the light of God.
A second aspect is the traditional one of 'giving something up for Lent'. This has sometimes been presented as chiefly about denying yourself some pleasure, as if that in itself were good for your soul. Or even more selfishly, it has been used for purely physical well-being, like giving up chocolate, alcohol, coffee or other forms of indulgence, so as to lose weight or 'detox' in some way. All that is important, but it's not what Lent is about.
If we give something up for Lent, it should, ideally, be for some greater cause. It should represent a blow struck in the spiritual conflict we are engaged in day by day. We could give up an unnecessary luxury (or several) in order to give the money we save to Oxfam or Christian Aid, and also to remind ourselves of what is really important in life. We could give up using the car for trips of less than two miles, or give up taking plastic bags at the supermarket (re-use them, or use long-life bags instead) in order to do less damage to the environment. We could give up buying anything we have seen advertised on TV in the last month, in order to resist the relentless pressures of a consumer society. We could do any or all of these, as a love-offering to God; as our way of saying thank you that we have so much, that we can afford to give something up; and as our way of contributing something to God's agenda of caring for the planet, and blessing all its inhabitants.
Let's try and keep a Lent this year that will make a difference.
Published in the Marston Times, February 2005