I would normally be at Merridee’s this morning but instead I’m at Midway Airport in Chicago, standing at gate B1, smelling the popcorn popping from across the building. We’ve been here this weekend for show. No pre-boarding today, the kids stayed in Franklin with family this weekend so we have to line up with the rest of the cattle. This was the first time Jennifer and I have gone away to play shows without them in over a year. When we returned home from Africa in 2007 we decided that, if and when we ever returned to turing, we’d make every effort to bring them with us and we have, until now. The kids’ cousin Elias was in town this weekend so we knew they’d much rather be home playing Wii than on another airplane so we decided to let them stay. Jennifer is in the terminal toy store buying gifts for them, probably partly out of guilt because we miss them and also because this was a really nice break for us to be alone together.

In downtown Chicagao today the fog covered all the tops of towering buildings making them seem all the same height. Brian (our drummer and Jennifer’s sister’s husband) was in the backseat of the van taking a sales call about one of the cars he has in inventory, and as I drove through the city center I thought about how, even with the suffering in Haiti, everyone in Chicago still has to go to work. We all watch as networks broadcast the unimaginable scenes of devestation; orphans sleeping in the streets, people fighting over food, and yet we have to go on with life up here, life as normal. But everything that is usual for us seems so pointlees with the knowledge of such suffering happening simultanously. We do our best to help while we go through our normal motions, from celeberties organizing telethons, to $10 text donations, to church bake sales, but we can only do so much. After that all we can do is pray and remember. Remembering is important though. I think it’s written into the fabric of our beings. It’s why we remember Dr King, or the sufferings of the Holacost, Pearl Harbor, or the 9/11 attacks. It’s not just a wistful thought. It’s an acknowledgement that something happened then that effects us now, even at a distance, and will continue to effect the course of history.

One of the most striking interviews that I’ve watched during the Haiti coverage was with their President. Like most of the city’s buildings, his palace had collapsed and was unlivable. He said that he was trying to figure out, among other things, where he would sleep that night. In an instant he was like everyone else in the city… displaced, homeless, uncertain. Like the fog made everything the same height this morning, suffering levels the playing field. And as we pray for the Hatians and remember there need we are reminded that we are all small, all human, and all vonerable. And that gives birth to compassion and compassion give birth to action.