Can you imagine?

Life this week: interrupted by a devastating earthquake in Haiti.

After being sucked into media coverage of past tragedies around the world, I decided this week to only tune in on occasion, to see what is happening in Haiti. Up until this week my knowledge of Haiti was limited to the stories and pictures I had seen at my friend Kerry's house. Her son Ethan and her had gone to Haiti this past summer on a mission. They had asked if I wanted to go with my oldest son, but he wasn't interested. It wasn't meant to be, for us. Not at that time.

After serving us a luscious and hearty lunch that day, we settled in to hear stories and look at images of their trip. Kerry is one of my very favorite people - one of the most "whole" women I know. Trusting her completely, I take on her feelings as if they are my own. When she told us that at points the trip got so unbearable that she just couldn't partake in the activities of the day, I understood in a way, what she was experiencing. She told us that she just could not bare to visit the dump where people were living. Existing off of other peoples' garbage. Living in their waste. Not just staying for a period - living there. She showed us pictures of young children who spent the days sitting naked on concrete floors of their orphanages. And then she showed us some of the more hopeful experiences. A home where young boys and men were brought off the street and housed and taught to entertain. To dance. To perform. To find hope through the arts. And she introduced us by story to the wonderful old woman, Heidi (aged 85) who brought them to Haiti and guided them on their mission. But still, what she told us and how I felt at that moment, were in direct contrast with each other. A full tummy in a beautiful house with goodness and delight all around me made it hard to comprehend completely what she had experienced.

So this week when I heard of the devastating earthquake in Haiti I thought right away of my friends, and their friends. It turns out that Heidi and her group had just gotten to the island the night before the earthquake. They left Port au Prince and headed out to a village 30 miles away, to begin their work less than 24 hours before it happened. . . and thank God they are okay.

But with that good news, I have to wonder, why would they be any more important than the tens of thousands that died? Why would I care more for a woman I had never met, than a Haitian that met with untimely misfortune? What would make one body and soul any more selective than another? And why couldn't I wrap my head around ANY of it?

One of my goofy goals is to some day be able to watch a surgery. I think it's fascinating and have good friends that are doctors and nurses in the O.R. I love stories of healing and am intrigued by the whole concept of health. I watch television channels devoted to stories of illness and injury, and keep hoping that some day I will be able to watch the process of surgery. Each time I put one of those shows on, I watch intently intending to watch the procedure all of the way through. But for some reason I can't. Squeamishly I turn at the last second, slamming my eyes closed. Unable to force myself to see what is commonplace for people in the professions that work in those situations day in and day out. In my head I know that it would be educational - but I simply cannot get myself to watch it.

And the same thing happened this week, when I decided to take in a little bit of the pain and tragedy that was playing endlessly on the media. Purposefully I had decided to not overload and not become desensitized to the tragedy, but I wanted to try and comprehend what the pain would be like. I wanted to feel - to experience empathy by watching and by letting myself "in" to what was going on there. In small doses, I began to look.

It bothers me when the media pulls certain images that end up etched into our minds, accompanied by a name they cleverly create with some typography that somehow "brands" a cataclysmic event. I don't want to categorize tragedies with some visual rolodex in my head - like the Oklahoma Federal Building bombing illustrated by the firefighter carrying the little girl draped over his arms or the 9-11 events enhanced images of people jumping from the twin towers. I've limited watching news channels and seek out information on Haiti on my own time, when I'm ready to sensitively try to really open my eyes and my heart - and take it in.

So yesterday when I got an email labeled something like Horrors in Haiti from Life pictures, I thought I would stop - and really look - and try to absorb what was going on there. The night before I had seen commentators on a show, microphone in hand, walking down streets in Port au Prince, that were scattered with bodies. Dead people! Humans. Brothers and sisters and mothers and fathers. Friends. Children! Sons and daughters. Laying on the curbside lifeless and waiting to be picked up, like yesterday's trash. In fact, it made me wonder if their loved ones even knew they were there.

I wondered what it would be like to be that newsperson. What kind of shock it would have to take for a person to be able to walk through that - and not stoop down to mourn and grieve.

I could make sense of none of it in my own head.

When the Life email notification of the images of Haiti showed up in my email box, I decided that I would let it in and try to actually feel what was going on there. I opened and slowly went through the 20-or-so images they had compiled. Some were labeled with a warning that the picture was disturbing, but I couldn't help but wonder who had decided which should be labeled and which shouldn't. I wondered how we could not all be disturbed by what we were seeing. I wondered how we could become so desensitized to it that we could watch it while eating dinner or could casually listen to the stories on the radio as we drove to the store to go shopping. I wondered, looking at the pictures, how some people in our world have become so hardened that they could spew out hateful insults about the way people lived there instead of even considering what it would feel like to be a part of that devastated society.

I looked at each picture carefully, trying to absorb what I could - knowing that with each bit of sensitivity I could nurture in myself, I could help to make the world a better place. A bit more caring and compassionate, simply by caring.

But looking back though - I realize that I wasn't able to really take it in. Just like I haven't been able to watch a surgery even though I know in my head I want to see how it works so I can better understand the human body, I realized that I wasn't able to really look at the pictures I saw of the tragedy in Haiti. Today I still cannot understand what happened there. I cannot wrap my head around the pain and suffering the people of Haiti are experiencing. I realize now that even though I thoughtfully and consciously looked at the pictures, I was still protecting myself by not truly letting the images into my soul. Apparently they call this "emotional intelligence." Our emotional intelligence tells us what to do when we feel empathy, and it decides what to do when
experiencing too much would not be good for us.

So - I can wonder what it would feel like to be in Haiti this week. I can wonder how 85-year old Heidi feels, and I can wonder what it would be like to be a camera man or news correspondent, walking down a street filled with wounded and dying and dead, but I cannot imagine what it really feels like. I guess that's a good thing. God doesn't give us more than we can handle, but I can't imagine how the people of Haiti were given what they were. How can anyone handle that? And what can we do, to understand and to help? How do we grow our emotional intelligence?

For now all I can do is to pray for understanding, knowing that when one person hurts, all of mankind hurts. And when one person cares, it affects us all. And when the time is right, I know that my capacity to feel will grow. Unless my husband is right, and we're just not meant to feel that. None of it makes sense to me. Why?