35 - EMERGENCY ROOM

Sitting there with about 35 other people
in the local hospital emergency room,
I couldn’t hear the TV sound. I could
just see the screen, the screams, the pictures,
just the captions from about 35 feet away:
another suicide bombing in Bagdad,
a flood in Rhode Island,
a train crash in Spain,
a boat capsizes in the Philippines,
a coal mine collapse in China,
a kidnapping in California – people –
their stories – all told in just 35 seconds,
clips of ongoing TV news…. TV cries.
Was my pain – my hurt worse?
Of course not – but it wasn’t till
I began to wonder about all
these people all around me,
some in obvious deep pain and panic,
that I began to enter into their hurt
and my pain numbed a bit.
Who are they? What happened?
Who are the people
they are connected to,
these 35 people or so,
just 35 feet away from me?
Jesus was right!
Hurt is an eye opener.
Hurt is a heart opener.

© Andy Costello, Reflections 2010