Shaken and Stirred

Shaken and Stirred

blog post from Amanda Aarons September 23, 2010 - Life in Perspective

How strange that my last blog was about gratitude and recognising the magic in life and baam two days later an earthquake.

Before I share some of my thoughts on the event, I would just like to say, to any readers in Christ Church that we are so grateful you are physically fine and all still here!
I can not even begin to imagine the terror, the ongoing fear and what must feel like torture with over 200 aftershocks. The definition of torture is “to cause somebody anguish: to cause somebody mental or physical anguish” and anguish has certainly been caused.
I pray that all will be restored and your lives will be altered for the very best. Altered it will be, it can never be the same after such a cataclysmic event, but I believe you will come back with great strength and wisdom to share. Be gentle with yourselves and heal.

The quake made me think of a number of issues, the first was pure frustration at the ridiculous “what if’s” of the media, “what if it had happened earlier, later, closer, further etc.” “the same repeated filmed shots over and over of the same ripped buildings and destroyed homes and the one blaring car! The need to create more drama than was already evident was pathetic. While, I realise, it was vital to get some sense of the disaster, after a while one recognised the obviously looped pictures and became bored with what was shown and switched channel! I started to wonder what the impact on the nation would have been if there were shots of people celebrating, high five-ing, going down on bended knee and thanking God that they were not pulling bodies from those same over filmed buildings?

Of course on the first day it was shear shock but as time went on, when it was evident that there were no deaths, I started to consider the power of the media. I realised how far reaching and vital its stretch, but I wondered if the media had a responsibility to elevate the tone and temper the sadness with some good news? To this day I have yet to see one report that said Thank the Lord we are all okay! Here was the opportunity for good news and they missed it, searching for and creating a sense of drama.

The calls from South Africa were initially shear panic and fear. The ignorance being that New Zealand is so tiny we must have been effected, the hope that we were all fine. These calls were motivation of this blog, this is the reason for my thoughts. From them I realised how close it must have seemed, I realised how the world is told a story with spine chilling coldness and drama, how fear is spread, how loved we are and how easy it is to re-connect, even though we were nowhere near the quake.

It made me question what we watch in the news, what we accept. Are we so hungry for bad news? Do we only watch or read morbidly fascinating news? Is the media only giving us what we want? What part of that responsibility is ours? Do we need to let the media know that we have evolved and want a fuller picture? What do you think may have been the impact on friends and family if there was a joyous response?
Did we all recognise the miracle right in front of us?
What might have been the impact on the people in Canterbury if they knew, the world were supporting them and grateful for their strength and bravery, in the midst of what for them must have been the most trying of miracles?

I realise the quake shook Canterbury but did it shake the rest of us up enough to remember our friends and family far and wide?
Have you taken the opportunity to contact people and see how they were doing, maybe not just at the quake site but people you haven’t connected with in a long time?

An event like this should shake us all to the core, make us all recognise how instantaneously the world can change, how fragile our structures and roots.
How petty our wars, and grumbles.

The Quake in Haiti 7.2 - over 200000 lives lost.
The quake in Canterbury 7.1 lives lost 0.

Thank you Lord - Amen.