What really matters. Chapter 2

By Art Gallagher

Michael sent me a text at 10:17 AM that he and Ruth could go back to their hotel room now and thanking me for monitoring the situation.  I had sent him a message at 8:42 telling him that the news reports were saying that the waves in Hawaii were insignificant.   His email message to the family simply stated that all was ok and that they were thankful and tired.

In the 5 1/2 hours between communications with my brother who was in the path of a tsunami,  I kept praying, monitoring the news on TV and the Internet and gave my best effort at my normal early morning routine of checking the news sites for material to comment on at MMM.

At app.com there was coverage of a four alarm fire in Ocean Grove.  My mother spends a lot of time in Ocean Grove.  Not often during this time of year, but she could be there.  Calls to her home and cell went unanswered.  Could both my mother and brother be in harms way at the same time on opposite sides of the planet?!  Mom called back later from Michael’s home in California where she was looking after his teenage daughters while he and Ruth were vacationing.

So far on this Friday morning nothing bad had happened to any of my loved ones, as far as I knew for sure, but events of the day were shaking me up.   Word from earlier in the week that a beloved aunt needed a liver transplant was shocking.  Now my brother’s life and perhaps my mother ‘s were in imminent danger.  The normal business of living that I usually approached urgently seemed trivial today.  The news from Japan was devastating, but it wasn’t personal.

Just after I received Michael’s message that he and Ruth were fine, my wife arrived home from a doctor’s appointment.   Lori was relieved to hear that Michael and Ruth were well.  She looked happier than I had seen her looking in quite sometime.  The surgical procedure she had a week earlier for a back injury had worked well.

It was getting to be late in the morning and I was late in getting to the business of living.  However, I spent some time filling Lori in on what had happened since I was awakened for no apparent reason in the middle of the night.  Lori asked me what time I was awakened.  “2:47 AM,” I replied.  At that very moment a TV anchor’s voice announced, ” At 2:46 this morning east coast time a 8.9 level earthquake hit off the coast of Japan.”

I still can’t get my head around that one.  It could mean something or it could mean nothing.  I believe in God and believe there is such a thing as miracles and divine intervention.  I also believe that the power and nature of God is beyond human understanding .  I am suspect of those who claim to understand God and tell other people how to live based on their “knowing.” 

I don’t “know” that God woke me up in the middle of the night nor do I “know” that I felt an earthquake on the other side of the planet.  I don’t “know” that my prayers made a difference in keeping my brother and his wife safe. I know I woke up in the middle of the night.  I know I communicated with my brother via human technology and thanks to that technology I know he and his wife are safe.

I believe I received a wake up call.  That while I’ve been urgently engaged in the business of living, I’ve paid less attention to what really matters than I need to.

When I arrived home on Friday night after dealing with the business of living, Lori filled me in on the good news from her doctors appointment.   The procedure on her back injury had worked.  Her suffering was greatly reduced. There was more work to be done, but she told me that the doctor said she had made his day when she told him she felt as though she had a new future.  She had been mentally preparing to live in pain and with limited mobility for the rest of her life and now she felt she wasn’t going to suffer that way.   If she had previously told me that she was going through that, I didn’t hear it.   This really mattered.

Lori will have another procedure in a few weeks, which will keep me working on the business of living.  Those health insurance premiums need to be paid and it really matters.

News sources say the events of Friday shifted the earth’s axis.   I’ve been moved.  Were you?

Posted: March 13th, 2011 | Author: Art Gallagher | Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: What really matters | 1 Comment »

• Tweet

---