When Nature Speaks by Dr. E. Faye Williams, Esq.

(TriceEdneyWire.com) - As a little girl growing up in Louisiana, hurricanes, tornadoes, and floods were a part of life. 

We had warnings for most of those.  Sometimes, it was the elderly folks feeling a certain pain that came on whenever bad weather was approaching.  Sometimes we could smell rain in the air.  Other times, we saw dark clouds that foretold what we were about to experience.  We had some fear when we saw the lightening and heard the loud thunder, but earthquakes seemed so foreign--something  that existed in a faraway place. 

Now, with instant visual news and opportunities to travel to places like Japan, earthquakes and tsunamis are all too real.  As I looked at each town being destroyed in Japan, I could recall visits to many of those cities.  I could recall great times I had in many of the cities and wonderful friends I knew who lived in some of them. 

I knew that after the 1923 tragic earthquake and resulting fires, the Japanese began to make buildings to protect and sustain themselves. Every year on September 1st, there is an earthquake drill inobservance of the biggest earthquake they’d ever had until this last one. Who could have imagined what we are witnessing now! Nothing prepared us for what has just happened.

This tragedy should remind us that sometimes we are so busy looking at the power of the rich and mean spirited who can do harm to us if we do something that displeases them or at the power of armies, while forgetting the power of nature.  Yet, if we put all the armies together, the nuclear weapons, the bombs, and guns together, they could not stop the power of the earthquakes, nor the tsunamis.  Life truly is so fragile that it makes no sense that we should hate and destroy one another. 

After most tragedies in our lives, we tend to vow to do better, to appreciate life and never take it for granted, but we do.  After every illness, we vow to take better care of ourselves by eating right, exercising, de-stressing and more.  After every funeral, we promise to keep in touch with family we haven’t seen for years, except at funerals or “home going celebrations” as we call them in our community—but soon afterward, we tend to go back to life as usual, forgetting our promises.

It is my prayer that all of us will take the lives we are given more seriously.  Just think about it.  In the past few weeks, we have witnessed large numbers of people losing their lives fighting for basic human rights.  We do not yet know the extent of the destruction of lives and property in Japan which came right on the heels in the past few years of Hurricane Katrina, the earthquake and floods in Haiti and New Zealand.  We have ongoing wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.  We have resistance to the rule of law in the Ivory Coast and other nations.  The Middle East has changed so dramatically in recent weeks that it takes our breath away.

For all the destruction and changes around the world, have we noticed what is happening in our own backyards and what is remaining the same?  Have we looked around communities near us where senseless killing has become the norm?  Have we looked at children living in poverty with no apparent way out! Have we witnessed the growing number of homeless on our streets?  Have we noticed crumbling schools to which we cannot blame young people for not wanting to attend?  Human nature is speaking to us to make a difference while we can.

Dr. E. Faye Williams is Chair of the National Congress of Black Women and Chair of the Board of the Black Leadership Forum.  She can be reached at www.nationalcongressbw.org or 202/678-6788