Putting it Back Together

Last Saturday, with the sermon still only partly written, my computer went crazy. The virus protection program started saying viruses were trying to invade. I rebooted, and the whole thing got very strange, error messages, threats, requests that I click here, click there.

My computer had been invaded by a dozen or more viruses and it needed to die. Wendell couldn't make it better. I was freaking out ... all my pictures, all my sermons, class notes, stewardship letters, genealogy charts ... (at least all my emails live on the web). The SERMON! (Well that got finished late at night at church.)

The computer died. I managed to scrape off it my documents and my pictures. That was it. Wendell reset it to factory settings and it was fresh and new like the day I got it. Every single program, document, etc. had to be reinstalled.

It made me extremely grouchy.

It also made me realize how extremely petty my grouchiness was. Because if I was this worked up over one computer, imagine how I would be if I were the woman in the picture above, sorting through the wreck of her Texas home after last weekend's hurricane, searching for pieces of her grandmother's china.

From the bridge in Mirebalais, Haiti, to the flattened landscape of Galveston, to the overflowing Grand River, Ike left his mark in a wide swathe. So many people felt the storm's destructive force.

In the end, it's your health and life and the safety of your loved ones that counts. But once that is assured, cleaning up, rebuilding, restoring, can take years, as we have seen with Katrina. It creates financial hardship, physical deprivation, stress, grief and anger.

Please: pray for all those affected by the storm, from the Caribbean to the Midwest.
Please: consider making a donation to the Red Cross or Episcopal Relief and Development.
Please: Remember to keep a sense of humor when life's little problems loom large. Things could be much worse.

+ Kit