I didnt feel the quake

By Joan Robertson in Articles

Our emotional response to the Christchurch earthquake

Earthquake

I live in Dunedin. I didn't feel the quake. I am not injured, and I have no friends or colleagues who have lost their lives or are injured. I have a home, and water and electricity, a working toilet -- and only a normal amount of dust. But I, like most New Zealanders, am not unaffected by this latest disaster to hit our neighbouring city Christchurch.

For 12 days we have watched the news, listened to the radio, read news reports, unceasingly - we have followed personal stories of tragedy, or close escapes, deeds of heroism and selflessness, we have mourned the deaths, the destruction, the desolation, and marvelled at the resilience and strength of those who are suffering.

And what are our emotions? Well, initially perhaps, shock, anger, bewilderment. Gary McCormack was thrown off his feet in the street when the quake struck. I heard him read this poem on Jim Mora's afternoon programme on Friday last week. "My poem really is about anger" he said. "When I picked myself off the ground in Christchurch the other day and looked around and saw the absolute pandemonium and the misery and destruction."

WHAT the drummer said to the drum.
You miserable low life bastard.
We saw you on the fourth of September calling into town on your spineless spine, giving us a flick and looking us over.
It was an earthquake then for the yellow pages. Remember the torch, the bottles of water.
In September you were just the piano player, tinkling the ivories. In moustache. Pretty out there. Eyeing the women on the dance floor.

Then My O my you waited!
I saw you the other day run up a blind alley full of hatred and dark breath. Black clouds only pity us.
You held us down on the jagged ground. You shook the streets and the city buildings. You tore the spire from the cathedral.
And all those people.
The tourists taking photographs, the babies taken in pairs, the hikers in the hills.
The ones buried beneath us still.
You miserable bastard of a thing!
The time has come,
Said the drummer to the drum.
When I can make no sense of it.
(Reprinted in the New Zealand Herald)

Anger and bewilderment, yes, but also tenderness.

But we move on from anger. We grieve. We grieve at the toll of lives lost; we grieve for the city, the buildings destroyed, and the broken shattered churches.

I happened on this prayer of Michael Leunig.

God accept our prayers.
Send us tears in return.
Give freedom to this exchange.
Let us pray inwardly.
Let us weep outwardly.
This is the breathing of the soul.
This is the vitality of the spirit.
For this we give thanks.
Amen.
(Common prayers collection. 1993)

And we are moved to compassion, to action. We have heard and seen so many examples of human angels. The courage of the USAR workers; the tirelessness and devotion to duty of the Mayor Bob Parker; the colleague who risked his own safety to stay behind with an injured and trapped worker; the Dunedin students sending packed lunches to their Christchurch counterparts; the neighbour offering free use of a washing machine in his garage.

As Sandy Ramage's Prayer for Christchurch (and Libya) printed in last week's bulletin said:
Even as bullets fly and buildings disintegrate,
may compassion rise in all of us
to be the God who walks and talks in the world today.

Finally, let us not forget to give thanks. The Bishop of Christchurch prayed at the remembrance service on Tuesday: "we gather to reflect on the precious gift of life". May we celebrate life, and the living, and the new lives to be born.

To the people of Christchurch, Lyttelton and Canterbury we send our thoughts, love, and prayers.
Amen.

By Joan Robertson.

First printed as a Connections article in the Parish Weekly Bulletin, March 6, 2011.