Hope in the Devastation

We have all heard the devastating facts of the Oklahoma tornado and seen the terrifying footage of grieving families amidst the rubble of schools, homes, and day care centers. The invasive footage splashed across the television screen of parents with empty arms is unendurable and I turn the channel in a small effort to respect their privacy.  

Despite this, it is somehow possible that hope is found in this devastation.  As I processed the tornado footage, my mind played back pictures of ordinary people rushing toward the destruction rather than turning away from it.  Report after report stated that ordinary people ran to the site of the collapsed school buildings to help pull children from the rubble.  I am sure they had families of their own whom they were concerned for and could have left the job to the emergency crews.  Instead, so many of these ordinary people thought not of themselves, but of the lives of strangers.  An AP photographer reported her account of witnessing rescuers pulling children from the rubble by forming a human chain.  She said she expected chaos, but instead observed a quiet calm as they listened to hear children among the debris.  

I have been haunted in years past of news reports in which people have encountered the opportunity to help save a life and instead literally stepped over a dying person on the street or closed their blinds and turned up the radio to drown out cries for help.  Although it is a sad and mournful moment because of the lives lost by the tornado, there is a peace found in the goodness shown through these citizens, who wasted no time in pulling their cars over and running to scenes we all instinctively want to run from.  This is exactly what the AP photographer witnessed when she said: 

"I know students are among those who died in the tornado, but for a moment, there was hope in the devastation."