Tread lightly on the things of earth

I haven’t written anything about the Hurricane Katrina disaster in New Orleans and on the Gulf Coast, partly because until today I’ve felt kicked in the gut by it, nearly numbed to silence by the magnitude of the suffering.

But today, somehow in addition to the suffering …

Today something’s shifting.

Is this the day the spell over us is finally broken, as when Gandalf broke Wormtongue’s deathly spell over Theoden in The Two Towers?

Is this the day the color of life returns to our faces?

Is this the trauma that causes us to shake off our stupor to discern the deception that compels us to war, to greed, to apathy? Is this the moment we finally hit bottom, recognize our folly, repent of our sins, and begin our long climb back to the world of the living, the thinking, the caring, the doing?

Is this the day that, in our heartbreak, we become human again?

We’re very close.