The following is a friend's personal reflection on what the South East Asia tragedy has meant for her. While it does have a religious angle, it more importantly gives some perspective on what religion, or anyone's belief in a higher authority, should really be about, whatever faith you believe in. Hopfully, it will maybe help console ourselves for the loss (whether it is personal or not) that we have faced.

I chose instead to stay home for the whole of the holidays on my own.

The weekend was spent quite peacefully without a drop of liquor passing through my lips or the whirlwind of gaiety sweeping me up into a dizzying stupor. A beat up copy of The Idiot was all that kept me company until I fell asleep.

I woke up early the day after Christmas feeling inexplicably chipper (perhaps most of the credit is due to the fact that I was not suffering from a severe case of dehydration or had a debilitating hangover weighing me down). My normal routine which involves making coffee, preparing breakfast, turning on the news and booting up the old laptop was all done with a hint of zeal that I normally do not possess when forced to wake and face a new day.

As I made myself comfortable on my couch, sipping coffee and eating fruit with my laptop perched upon my knees (I have a habit of web-surfing while watching television in case I want more information on anything interesting that could be mentioned on air), I contemplated how nice it was to have those private moments in the morning.

But that sense of peace was abruptly shattered by what was being flashed across my television screen:

“Earthquake hits Indonesia. Thousands presumed dead”

It shocked me into turning up the volume on my television and see what was being reported on the web. While looking for all the up-to-date news items, a thought hit me, “How sad for such a thing to happen especially the day after Christmas, a few days before the New Year and just a few months after Indonesia’s first presidential election.” I was shocked even more to learn that it wasn’t just an earthquake that had hit Indonesia but a tsunami with the number dead and missing expected to rise exponentially as the days progressed.

As I followed the news that morning and well into the afternoon, it got me to thinking of how much fear we have for all things man-made (such as weapons of mass destruction and war) and the precautions we have taken to ensure that attacks such as those on September 11 will never happen again.

Yet look at how helpless we are to attacks from Nature.

This fear of what mankind has created is the basis of reason our government has given us for a continued presence in Iraq (and there are some that believe that the battle for things Nature has given us is what propels us to continue). I wondered how far gone we are as human beings to have ended up in such a situation where we forget what humanity really is or means.

Boys that should be experiencing the sweetness of youth are instead fighting and dying for America’s vision of democracy in Iraq.

Violence is being used as a means to enforce religious beliefs.

Hunger has become a way of life for millions with no sign of relief anywhere.

Freedom is a concept that many have never been taught or is as elusive as winning the lottery.

And then something like this occurs.

In an instant, we are forced to deal with the things we cannot control or ever truly hope to control. As of today, the devastation is said to have claimed over a hundred thousand lives and left over a million homeless. And still we know that the death toll is expected to increase as the aftermath of the Christmas Tsunami is cleaned up. Rebuilding the coastal towns, ensuring proper medical attention, including supplies, will cost billions. Providing food and shelter for the displaced families will require thousands of able-bodied workers.

And this is just the tip of the iceberg.

Some have said that a “higher power” (this “higher power” could be a “God” or whatever one is more inclined to believe) is responsible for this tragedy in order to put things into perspective for us; so we know what it means to be truly powerless when we claim to be powerless over the things we ourselves have created.

Some have cited passages from the Bible, recalling the Great Flood and questioning the covenant which God made with mankind.

Some have said this is an apocalyptic sign.

Well, I don’t know if there is a “God” or a “higher power” for that matter, but I truly believe in learning from every event that occurs in life and trying to derive some sort of meaning from it in order to apply it to my life.

So I found myself asking, “Why did this happen?”

I had no answers…until today…

Just as many believe there was a great flood that covered the Earth, wiping out most of existence, it is also important to remember that God trusted the one last good man, Noah, to serve as a reminder of what was lost and the hope of what will be reborn. A covenant was made between God and humanity afterwards; God promised that never again would he use such methods to wipe us out.

Because of this, I cannot agree with those that believe that this was a sign that the end of the world is near and here is why.

Many of us have opened our hearts and wallets to the suffering being experienced by those directly affected from this unfortunate event. Waiting with anxiousness and concern, we follow the death toll and feel a sense of loss for those we do not know but can identify with because when tragedy hits, the emotional repercussions of it is infectious.

It seems timely that such an event occurred at the end of 2004; for look at how many of us started 2005. We cannot deny the united sense of loss we have felt as a result of this horrific disaster that none of us could have prevented. We cannot deny our desire to do something for those that have lost so much. We cannot deny the ability to give when the only incentive we have for giving is to help (be it with money, prayers or volunteer efforts) and be confident our act is not motivated by selfish ulterior motives.
This is not a sign that it is the end of the world approaching but a sign that it is time for a new beginning. This tsunami worked on a smaller scale as the flood the Bible refers to but perhaps on a larger scale, we are all representations of what the character Noah stood for…the hope of what we can be and always were; compassionate human beings.
We have started 2005 with the understanding that some things are just not in our control but yet we have the ability to come to one another’s side when tragedy occurs.

Let’s have this be the precedent for how we live and think for the rest of the year and the following years after that. Let’s leave behind what happened in the past, and look to rebuilding what was lost, including our spirits. Nature has reminded us once again that she has no prejudice when choosing where to unleash her wrath. We cannot control Nature’s unpredictable moods but we can control the senselessness of our actions or at the least, curb them and we can know the power of feeling united not as a country but as a species.

This is the way it should be, no?

This past Christmas, I discovered that a holiday celebrating the birth of a new religion was never meant to be spent getting drunk or sulking away in self-pity. I realized that quiet moments of reflection can sometimes bring about the sense of inner peace that many of us believe to be unattainable.

Certain choices we make in life, how ever quiet some of them may be, can help us make great strides in our quest for happiness.

The tragedy in Asia reinforced my belief that mankind was never meant to fight against each other but for each other. We accomplish more when unified because in essence, we all want the same things; the preservation of life, the comfort of those around us and the ability to do something in the bleakest of situations.

Times like these serve as a reminder that sometimes the uncontrollable situations we put ourselves in are actually within our powers to tame and the true uncontrollable elements we encounter in life are meant to bring us closer together.

The acts of God are what humble us but it will be the acts of man that help us rise above.

—underthebambootree@yahoo.com