You Can Escape From Liability

But you can not escape from regret.
You can escape from school,
But you can not escape from knowledge.
You can escape from your enemies,
But you can not escape from fear.
You can escape from jail.
But you can not escape from guilt.
You can escape from commitment,
But you can not escape from love.
You can escape from others,
But you can not escape from yourself.
You can escape from life,
But you can not escape from death.

But a Breath

A lot happens when you take in a breath.
That breath is warm, it is full of the source of life,
And in the fraction of time that it takes to take it,
You are granted just a little longer on this earth.
And when that breath ceases..
The silence that is left behind can be deafening and overwhelming.
There is a Psalm from the Bible that says our life is but a breath.
Against the timeline of earth,
Our lives can seem so short, so insignificant.
But up close, each life is not only significant —
Each life is interconnected and interdependent.
Within each rise and fall of the sun,
That life has a circle within which it operates.
These are events, moments, relationships,
Accomplishments, successes and failures,
That make life worth living;
That life matters because it was lived.
It matters because we need each other.
Almost two weeks ago, as each of us were moving about our lives,
The lives of millions of people were changed forever.
For countless thousands, life stopped.
With one breath everything was okay,
And the next the world had literally crumbled around them.
In less than a minute the destruction was indescribable.
Only the empty screams of the lost and wounded
Could paint the picture for what was left behind.
But pictures can only tell so much.
A picture cannot tell you about what was loved or what was lost.
A picture cannot tell you about hopes, dreams, successes or failures;
Nor can it tell you about the relationships that matter,
Or what had been important to that person.
A picture captures the space of time it would take to draw in a breath —
Even if it was your last one.
Many have precious things under the rubble that might never be moved:
Spouses, children, parents, friends, money, resources, shelter,
And for many, a reason to live.
It has all disappeared, never to be brought back as they were.
This can’t be captured in a picture; it can’t be conveyed in a moment.
It took an entire lifetime to accumulate and was gone in one breath.
How quickly we seem to take so much for granted when it is ours,
And how quickly our world can change and leave us in the shock of loss and pain.
The reality seems more than any one person can handle,
And no one should have to handle that much pain alone.