"An endless scream passing through nature"

The cherry blossoms are weeping. Japan is suffering one of the worst natural disasters of modern times, a huge earthquake that triggered a mind-bending tsunami that has destroyed northern coastal cities such as Sendai, a once-lovely city of one million, considered Japan's "greenest" city (photo montage, below right, Wikipedia). Nature’s fury unleashed. We are powerless in the face of it. The destruction is unimaginable. It's like watching the twin towers crumble after the terrorist attacks of 9/11. I know it's not the same, but I feel that same sense of helplessness and horror.

It's how the painter Edvard Munch felt when he witnessed a blood-red sunset in Norway caused by the ultra-massive explosion of Indonesia's Krakatoa Volcano and a resultant devastating tsuanmi that totally wiped out this far-away island in 1883. This natural disaster was the source of his famous painting, "The Scream." I never knew this before, that a monster disaster, an explosion heard and seen round the world over 100 years ago, inspired this painting. “Suddenly the sky turned blood red,” Munch recalled. “I stood there shaking with fear and felt an endless scream passing through nature” (quoted in Wikipedia).

I was glued to the TV for several hours, then turned it off. Did I detect a hint of glee in the reporters’ coverage, an earth-shattering event that was good for the news. Somehow I think the news stations like these disasters. It brings millions to the tube. It goes on for days and days. Breaking news. Breaking news. Disaster. Death. Destruction.

Maybe I am being overly sensitive. Afterall, we do want to know what’s happening. But 24/7 for days on end? This is what I am not sure about. Perhaps the best thing is that the overkill news coverage mobilizes disaster relief. Japan helped Louisiana after Katrina, and joined other nations in helping Haiti after the earthquake, and now these nations will help Japan, along with humanitarian organizations and caring individuals hearing the horrifying news.

“An endlress scream passing through nature,” a horrific natural disaster made worse by nuclear meltdowns and a rising death toll. Another Chernobyl, another Hiroshima and Nakasake, loom. Massive radiation contamination. An unending crisis, one on top of the other. We pray for Japan, for the people lost, for the survivors of these families who grieve surrounded by nothing but rubble, destruction, a flooded wasteland, and now nuclear fallout. Some things are beyond understanding. The cherry blossoms are weeping.