Earthquake

What can be more important to life, but life itself?

The sincerity, intensity and impact of a message in a cliché are most of the time taken for granted. People have heard such a message countless of times already that to some, it does not make sense anymore. There are two dominant possibilities in sharing a cliché, either the ones who hear it believe and live it, or they hear and disregard it.

How about if the cliché pertains to life?
What if it goes like, “Life is short, live it to the fullest.”
“Any good you can do now, do it. Do not delay.”
Will it ever find its way to your hearts? I mean, how many people out there will take that call seriously and heed a life mindful of its fleeting and transitory nature?

Devastations, destructions, hostilities, calamities, accidents and many others of that sort are actually not new to me. I hear them from news, read it in dailies, overhear from others or even witness it happen right in front of me. And because it has been so casual, as often as you can imagine, those too, even how emotionally piercing, have lost its impact on me at some point.

Not until yesterday.

I have never consciously felt afraid on matters of death until I experienced the earthquake yesterday. It may seemingly be any one of those not-so-strong-earthquakes there is, as its just magnitude 6.3, but to tell you the truth, that was already the strongest and longest quake I have experienced since birth. I was rattling within as much as the way I have reflected it through my actions.



When it happened, I was with the other churchgoers who were hearing mass in the chapel. I did not know what to do, though I am certain that I wanted to go someplace safe. Anxieties and fears were very well evident on people’s faces. I heard cries. Some knelt down and the one closest to me prayed: “Forgive our sins Lord. Please cover us with your mantle of protection.”

Tears gushed on my face. No words. I knelt down crying.
I then asked, what can be worse than what I have seen in Cagayan de Oro and Iligan? I cannot reconcile such a thought. I prayed, prayed harder this time.

Shortly after, classes and work have been called off. In a short span of time, the wary crowd subsided. Cracks on few buildings came to existence after. It was announced that a number of aftershocks can be expected in the next hours and there we felt them indeed. When I reached home, I was still a little dizzy. And when I was about to take a nap early in the evening, there is another shake that prompted me to go out of the house. Another one came during dinner.

Fear enveloped us. The thought of the strong tsunami that hit Japan and the powerful current of water coupled with a massive number of logs during Typhoon Sendong that wiped out areas in CDO and Iligan last year, those scared the hell out of me. But the thought that God is there to protect, these fears died down.

Awareness of what kind of devastations can possibly happen is something that can kill us before the real thing happens. To be firm in faith and believing that everything will be well will truly help us rise above the situation. But still, we are no masters of these calamities. Most of the time, our instincts will lead us on what we ought to do at the moment.

May we be spared from all calamities.

Please, let us continuously pray for each other.

No one from us will live forever, let’s make our lives meaningful.

If you have been too selfish all along, we better think of others as much as we think of ourselves now, for who knows, later on it might be too late to extend that help we are capable of giving.

God Bless you all! :)






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