Love For All, Known and Unknown

I have read many recent beautiful blogs and stories recently about the horrible pain in Haiti.

While I know there are many sites out there I have not visited, below are the ones I have. Please take a few minutes to read through them.

Shona (shonastudio.blogspot.com) wrote a moving post on the love of a parent, imagining how one could face losing a child in such a tragedy, and how we can help through a donation through the Three Angels Relief. Her picture reminded me of my own daughter and brought tears to my eyes.

Karen Maezen Miller, or Momma Zen (mommazen.blogspot.com, reminded us of a beautiful story of the Hummingbird and the fire...urging us to do what we can - for in truth, that is all we can do (and that is Everything). Her simplicity expresses truth in a way thousands of words never could.

Susannah (inkonmyfingers.typepad.com) shared several links for how to help both in the US and the UK and reminded us that friendship can occur both with those we know and love and shared with those we may never meet.

Jenny Doh (jennydoh.typepad.com) wrote an amazing and soul-touching post on our blessings and how something as simple as water can be taken for granted. I love how she reminded us that helping also takes the form of imagination, creativity, and beauty...something that we can all do with joy.

Jena (bullseyebaby.wordpress.com) stunned me with an honest description of her emotions -- all bundled with a reserved joy on her birthday. She stressed (oh how I love this!) that we are all connected, this is our shared experience, and that our joys and our suffering is meant for us all to share. Happy Birthday, Jena.

Maya (mayamade.blogspot.com) shared a touching personal story about her own experience with an earthquake, a link to a great post with several resources of how to help, as well as a lovely creation (she is excellent at beauty and simplicity) she had made to be sold at an Etsy shop Craft Hope for Haiti where proceeds go to Doctors Without Borders.

Melissa at Operation Nice (www.operationnice.com) offered links of how to help, including a wonderful way to donate via cell phone. Nice acts can extend beyond our own backyard and don't have to be difficult to do.

Secret Agent L (secretagentlinpgh.blogspot.com) shared a moving picture, offered herself and all of usual time spent doing wonderful acts for others as a way to help (and encouraged others to do the same), and shared a stunning link to another post with a very moving story that is still sticking with me.



To each of these lovely individuals, and to all of the others out there offering your donations, your thoughts, and your prayers, thank you.

It is easy to distance ourselves from this, particularly for those of us who don't know anyone in Haiti. Yet it is imperative, as our days continue and our own needs call our attention, that we remember our collective soul.

We have each had at least one moment of tragedy where life seemed to stop, where the rug was pulled out from underneath our solid foundation of "reality". Yet somehow, we knew that even at that instant, life for the rest of the world was going on as it always was. I think that it is energy from those who took the time to acknowledge our pain, to share even a moment of their time and love, to climb off their own spinning wheel of life to share in the pause of ours, that makes all the difference in the world.

Life goes on. We can determine how it does. May we each spend a minute to reflect, in whatever we we deem appropriate, on those less fortunate, those in pain, to remember that we too have been there - and will be there again - and to then bring ourselves back into the moment, do what we can to help, and continue our lives in deep gratitude.