Where is everyone?

"Is it Safe to Come Out?"
16" x 20" Mixed Media Collage

On the day I'm authoring this post I have various combinations of personal family and friends either living and/or traveling in these places - Hong Kong, Thailand, Barcelona, France and Italy, as well as in FL, NY, TX, WA, HI, MN, CA, MO, WY, OK, GA - frankly those are all the places that I can think of at this moment.

One might assume that with all the news of tragedy in this world locally and abroad that we would hunker down close to home and make sure that none of our children or spouses ever left the nest.  But that's not the way life is.  We continue to move onward and out, exploring, stretching our borders  as well as our imaginations.  

It's amazing that we continue to move about freely even as our hearts jump when a global or stateside tragedy flashes across the news screen or internet - where are our peeps - our children, our sisters and brothers, our friends?  We count noses, we thank God, we breathe a sigh of relief that it is not our family that is personally involved in tragedy - but of course, because we have the global connection and internet and news coverage that we do, it is our family that sits in the rubble of Japan, that cries in the marketplace in Iraq, that trembles at the night time sounds of unknown enemies rummaging through rubble in Haiti and all over the world.  

We would go insane if we had to carry all the fear and burden of every single person in the world in our hearts.  We could not survive if we felt every loss of life as the losses we incur when someone very close to us dies - yet, the least we can do is to pray for those whose burdens this night are unbearable for them alone - pray that for some small instant they may be given hope or relief or courage in their sorrow.  Where is everyone and where should our prayers be directed this night?