Yesterday's latest headlines from China lit  my screen as I opened my little laptop.  

But I didn't open the article.  

Earthquake.  China.  40,000.

I better just come clean here: I didn't want to know.

Well over 40,000 individual lives crushed by collapsing buildings.  Men.  Women.  Boys.  Girls.  Teachers.  Doctors.  Plumbers.  Mothers.  Cousins.  Brothers.  Friends.

Why didn't I want to hear it?  Why do I still feel myself resisting the info?

I guess I'm afraid that if I hear, I will feel.  And if I feel, then I will hurt.  I don't want the weight of the knowledge that yet another natural disaster, fresh on the heels of tragedy in Burma, has destroyed/devastated/plundered/ pillaged life on a massive scale beyond my comprehension.  

I live in a city with a high rate of HIV infection.  I don't want to know that endless tragedies of seemingly limitless creative expression are stomping lives down in many other cities of the world as well.

I think I want the pain contained.

(Good luck, honey.)

Tonight I make a choice to stop squeezing my eyes closed.  I know that open eyes lead to open hearts and open hearts can lead to disappointment, suffering and pain.  

But maybe I can push beyond my feelings and take some action toward the healing.

Tonight I light a candle in my dark hall and I make the conscious decision to pray for those who are suffering because of these quakes so far away.  Each time I pass it, which will be many times throughout the course of this evening, I will pray.

I know, as Martin Smith sang so poignantly on the Live and In the Can album years ago, that

"There is a light that shines in the darkness." 

I am relieved to get over my selfish need to shut China out as I lift my hands to heaven.