THE BIG SHAKE - 22ND FEB 2011

I wrote this about a week after the massive earthquake that tried to destroy our city. I think today is a good day to share it, unedited, exactly how it was written.

BIG SHAKE 22ND FEB  2011

 

A week or so on seems about the time to start getting some of the feelings and the experience of all this down.  Or else the whole memory will be fully influenced by the media who are reporting of it.  The media reports are part of the feeling.  Grateful for the news.  Aware of how it all works…getting the story…getting a new angle on the same story for the next bulletin….finding someone else remotely interesting to interview…while standing in the CBD zone where none of us can go…and such a media circus…with so many to accommodate that all the motels and hotels are FULL OF MEDIA so the desperate and needy (and less fiscally flush) cannot be accommodated. That is one small feeling anyway, and a way to get started because the real deep feelings are still pretty raw.

 This is 10 days on, and I am not sure from which perspective I should or will express myself.  It will be what I feel, but perhaps not from a particularly personal perspective, but more of a collective one.  More likely a bit of a mish mash of both.  Not sure.  Dunno!  Will proceed anyway.

 12.47am right now, 11^th day I guess, choppers flying overhead….heck…they’ve slowed down in quantity I guess….or have I slowed down enough to hear more of them?  A lot of activity up in the air right now, 12.50am Friday 5^th March. 

 What an absolutely bizarre and totally unexpected, hideous, devastating tragedy this gatecrasher of an earthquake is for our city and our people. 

I would certainly not call it Soul Destroying.  It won’t get any of that kind of Kudos from me.  Our people’s souls are not destroyed by loss of property, homes, of being displaced for a while, losing jobs, income, security, the inability to provide the usual comforts for those we love, or for ourselves.  We are bigger than that, each and every one of us I am sure, feel a far deeper loss than any that we may be enduring on a hardship or comfort level. 

The loss of life in our city is what is hurting the people of Christchurch.  Each awful death reaches and touches so many.  There are so many deaths. 

Each beloved person who has had their life ripped away, without any warning, has left so many grieving souls,….their own beautiful families, their friends, all of those who loved them, and those who admired them and respected them.  It is not fair.  This is true.  But so also is the Truth that our people will NOT be destroyed by this.  Not even while facing the most Huge loss of all.  A Mother.  A Father.  A Son or a Daughter, (God bless the Mum from the Phillipines who endured her daughter’s texts from CTV with such helplessness, such anguish). A Brother or a Sister.  A Granny or Grandpa.  A dear Friend. None of us will be un-touched by the enormity of this tragedy.  None of us will Ever forget these days we are living right now.  This event will be the biggest thing in all of our lives, our memories, our hearts…..young and old…..for all of our days.  This is the Measuring Stick. Pike River is also part of these times, so recent, so tragic.  Felt so deeply by us all.

Our people’s souls are strangely strengthened by these unwelcome, extremely challenging, ongoing, difficult, sad, inconvenient and horrific events.  We may ask the question….WHY??  WHY us?...Why here?  Why now? …after so much already endured?  Do we even expect an answer?

We each have our own inner selves to look to, to find our answers.  Do I have an answer?  The answer?  NO!!  I do not.  I have no religion or any new age stuff to preach to anyone.  I just have myself, and my feelings right now, and my Trust.  Who am I?  Even the scientists and the Moony guy can’t explain this one.  Leave all that to the talk back radio and the media.

What I know….is that the people of Canterbury, the people of Aotearoa, the Spirit of our country, of it’s leaders…..(John K and Bob P)….the amazing tireless work of the rescue teams from all over the world and the Love and the help and the pro action of thousands of big hearted angels who’ve given so much of themselves, their resources, their hearts and their time, their donations of money, food, water and stuff, and the whole spirit of our beautiful Country,…..phew what a long sentence this is….. the solidarity for Canterbury and for what we are experiencing, the energy of all the innovated money raising happenings, the growing donations given anonymously by so many…… well to be perfectly honest, it is humbling for me to be a Cantabrian.  It is a great honour to be here in this mess and to feel such staunchness from the rest of New Zealand.  What you are all doing with your fundraising for our City, and the unselfish and accepting attitude I have encountered so far with regard to ideas of how to help re-build Christchurch, well….I’ll tell you what…how I feel tonight has  a lot to do with Your solidarity, as a Country.  That is where we gain our Strength.  That is why our Souls are Not, and Will Not be Destroyed by this nasty destructive natural disaster.  Thank you to all of New Zealand for your Compassion, Generosity, Help, Energy, and Understanding of  our massive loss.

WE SHALL NOT……WE SHALL NOT BE MOVED!!!!!