I’m sitting in front of a window overlooking the East River. It’s calm and I see the lights to the north and south of Manhattan and the lights of Queens and it’s beautiful. I turned off the TV an hour ago, and as I look at the beauty before me, I’m thinking of what water has done to parts of Louisiana. Again we’re left wondering about many things. We play the TV images over and over in our mind, but nothing is resolved. We cannot make the misery go away. Most of us are not going to Louisiana to physically help. We donate money. We donate clothes. And we pray. We all have different opinions about what’s going on in our world today. We live in interesting times in that information is always at our fingertips. There is something strange about witnessing the suffering of people long distance as they’re going through incredible pain.
I went to the Union Square Greenmarket www.unionsquarejournal.com/greenmarket.htm and as I lifted a handful of okra I said to the woman next to me that it was my first time buying it. She smiled and told me the best way to prepare it. She said she’s from New Orleans and is a caterer, and tonight she was preparing dinner for a group of friends. Everyone was going to pay $50 for the meal. The money would be donated. That was her way of helping people in her hometown. I’m sure a lot of love will go into the meal she prepares tonight.
And I understand that what we do with the information we see on the screen is up to us.