I don't know. And the latest disasters in Japan have made me feel even more helpless than the others. I have two friends living in Japan, Mei Ling and Tadaki, and I am grateful that they and their families are far from danger. But I spent 3 weeks in Japan after college, rode trains on tracks that were swallowed up and walked along streets that have disappeared under rubble. I smiled and said "yes" to dozens of people who wanted to know if they could practice their English with me, rubbed elbows with hundreds in elevators and trains that didn't have room for half their number of inhabitants, and took elbows from 50 more doing their best to win a basketball game against the USA "giants." I know enough to know that not all of them could have survived.

You might expect more or other from me than these types of thoughts, and I will try to offer more, especially more hope. But first I had to be honest about the sadness and the grief and the devastation. Before talking about hope, I needed to acknowledge that millions of people right now must be either beyond hope or even hopeless. I'm not one of them, but I'm finding my own thoughts and words about hope ringing pretty hollow right now, so I'm looking to others for hopeful words.

Jurgen Moltmann, former professor of systematic theology at the University of Tubingen, West Germany, is one of the leading proponents of the "theology of hope." He believes that God's promise to act in the future is more important than the fact that [God] has acted in the past. However, Moltmann warns, a focus on the future and God's action in it does not give us permission to withdraw from the world in the hope that a better world will somehow evolve. Instead, hope in God for the future includes active participation in the world in order to aid in the coming of that better world.

I don't know about you, but that thought helps me in these times. I resonate with the idea that my faith calls me to do something, and here are a few of the things I'll either start doing or keep doing.

 *Keep praying. As I pray, I'll keep in mind the story I've often shared with you about Barbara Brown Taylor and the experience she had of spending a night in intense body wracking, soul wracking pain.

Brown Taylor wrote: "I prayed the kind of prayers I never thought I would pray. I began the kind of bargaining with God that I do not even believe in, and when that did not work, I called God's honor into question. I begged God to do something. I dared God to do something. Finally, close to dawn, I found myself turning away from the God in charge of pain removal toward the God who had stayed with me through the pain no matter what I said...The pain had not only changed the way I prayed. It had also changed my ideas about the One to whom I prayed."

*Offer practical aid. As in so many other times of great need, I have the best of intentions about helping with those needs. I don't always see it through. I intend this time to pay attention to specific needs and follow through with practical help. This can be anything from encouraging our U.S. government to increase humanitarian aid to sending financial aid personally or through MCC Cares if you all agree. (I'll continue praying, too, as a way of practicing the practical.)

*Think globally and locally. Why does it take a disaster to remind me about human suffering? Every day I pass people who are hungry, homeless, without food, without hope...I want to be more consistent in finding ways to provide them with practical aid too, whether that's advocating or feeding.

*Be mindful and grateful. I found out quickly that my friends Mei Ling and Tadaki were safe, but the information made its way to me through a chain of emails; I'm not in regular correspondence with them myself. I know it's not realistic to think that I can stay in touch with everyone I've ever met all the time, but there are people who hold pieces of my heart, and I shouldn't let such long periods of time go by without saying thank you to them.

This is by no means an exhaustive list, but it's a beginning, and taking the first step is often the first proof that hope lives.

Praying for You Always,