Shake Shake Shake

Few things put life in perspective like a massive earthquake. They can strike anywhere, at any time, and the average person has no clue when they're coming. Cruelly, it's the poorest countries in the world who are affected the most when an earthquake hits. Poverty means slapdash housing, lax building codes, an absence of political or moral will to fix these problems and construct the kinds of buildings that could withstand a significant earthquake, or at least minimize the ensuing damage. A country can't focus on the luxury of above standard buildings when it can't even feed its own people. Even here in the U.S., the richest country in the world, earthquakes can do massive damage, like they did in San Francisco in the 90s. Even here, housing codes and inspections are not up to par. Just imagine how bad it was in Haiti before this happened.

Watching the footage from Haiti has been heartbreaking and nauseating at the same time. Bodies piled on the streets. Kids with dirty, bleeding faces and limbs. People walking around dazed, in shock, not knowing where to go because their homes have been flattened and the aftershocks are still coming. Thousands of people sitting on garbage, tears, desperation, and hopelessness on their faces. After watching an hour of these images last night, I couldn't take it anymore. So I changed the channel. How nice an option that is for some of us. We get to turn it off and forget about it.

Now, days after the initial devastation, reports say that people are becoming angry. They are hungry, thirsty, bleeding, and maimed. People are dying on the streets. They are desperate for medical attention that has not yet come. Now, the machetes are coming out. Gangs are forming. There's a sense, as would be the case anywhere else, as was the case in New Orleans after Katrina, that a bad moon will be rising if the situation doesn't improve quickly. And then we'll see baser human instincts come to bear. I hope that doesn't happen. I hope that today will be the day things begin to turn around for these poor people.

But it's hard to imagine that happening when I see the massive piles of wires, broken concrete, the metal everywhere, the collapsed houses, schools, hospitals, and office buildings, crushed as if God Himself had dropped them from outerspace. It's hard to imagine how things will improve anytime soon. Before this earthquake, Haiti was the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere. Numero uno in the contest no one wants to win. Before this earthquake, Haiti was already on its knees. After this earthquake, Haiti is flat on its back.

No one gave much thought to Haiti before January 13th. It, like many third world countries, was spinning around in ineptitude and intractable poverty. The only time we paid attention to Haiti was when some of its people, desperate for a better life, took to the seas on a flimsy boat, only to be turned away in Florida after having survived the perilous journey. When certain people were decrying the return of Elian Gonzalez to Cuba all those years ago, I thought to myself (and sometimes said out loud) if poor little Elian had been from HAITI, we would have sent him back on a speedboat and wouldn't have had any of this political nonsense. Haiti was an utter mess before this happened. It's in the 9th circle of hell now. Ask Pat Robertson. According to him, Haiti is "cursed" with bad luck due to a deal it made with Satan in order to escape colonialism and attain its independence. Funny how he never speaks of an American deal with The Red and Horny One when we fought our Revolutionary War to escape OUR colonialism. Or when we massacred the American Indians who were here first so we could steal their land and achieve Manifest Destiny. No, we are blessed by God. Haiti is cursed. That's convenient. I wonder where that douchebag gets his stories?

Politics and delusional maniacs aside, the thing that compels me most about earthquakes is that they are the most natural thing in the world. Literally. I ain't no geologist, but what I recall from 11th grade science class is that earthquakes are caused by a shifting in tectonic plates along the earth's crust. Volcanic explosions in the earth's core periodically lead to a shifting in these massive, ginormous plates that form mountains and the land we sit our asses on when we drink our lattes and drive our SUVs. Since they can't be seen, we forget they even exist. We get surprised when they remind us that no, they haven't gone away, in fact, they are still relevant, were here long before us, and will be here long after we're gone.

Earthquakes remind us that the earth is not actually ours. Earthquakes remind us that in reality, we're only renters who are borrowing a small patch of earth for awhile. We build our houses, our apartment buildings, our office skyscrapers on the assumption that it's us who run the show and can do what we want, when we want, and where we want. Earthquakes say "Not so, homo sapiens. You, in fact, are no more important than plants, animals or any other sentient beings who occupy the tiniest surface of this planet. Beneath you, 99.999% of this orbiting ball contains a different, explosive reality, one that is never quiet though you will never see or feel it, save for the occasional volcanic eruption. Beneath you, great changes, changes that would destroy your entire race, happen on a daily basis. And once in a while, you get the wispiest smidgen, a fractional subset of a subset of a fractional lick of the magma and lava and heat living far beneath you: the earth shakes for a few seconds. The earth is not responsible for what happens after that. It's just doing what it does. It's simply reacting to another part of itself. If you are hurt by that, if you think you are special, that you're more important than what is underneath you, a part of this planet that has existed since it was formed, you are in for a rude awakening."

Rude indeed. Hundreds of thousands of people are estimated to have been killed in this earthquake, which measured 7.0 on the Richter scale. The dead include the poor, of which there are many in Haiti, and the wealthy -- tourists who were staying at the nicest hotel in Port au Prince. American diplomats, U.N. heads, children, shantytown dwellers, all dead. No one was immune. No one got special treatment (though, in typical human fashion, the search and rescue teams are definitely according special treatment to certain categories of people). We sit here and worry day after day about Al Qaeda and 9/11, Iraq and Afghanistan, and a natural "Act of God" takes the lives of hundreds of thousands of people in a few seconds of shake, shake, shake.

Earthquakes show us the better side of ourselves too. A forgotten country like Haiti now has unprecedented attention from the world. Many generous people have donated money to organizations like the Red Cross and Doctors Without Borders. The United States has promised $100 million and sent thousands of Marines to keep order. Obama has suspended proceedings for 18 months against Haitian immigrants who are in the United States illegally. People care and want to help. That's the beauty of the human spirit. Unlike earthquakes, our acts are not random. They are purposeful and intentional and when we use them for good, to help rather than to harm, we are elevated to something far greater than ourselves and the meat and bone bodies we occupy. We become spirit. And spirit is something that no earthquake, no matter how powerful, could ever destroy.