Last week at work, I got a “heads up” call letting me know one of our students was lost, possibly hurt or even dead. Her car and campsite appeared to be abandoned, and so the search began. Law enforcement sent ground units and planned for a search from a helicopter, as soon as the winds died down. Everyone went into action, and did their jobs. I met with people who knew her, and talked with them about how they were doing, and heard about bad things that they had already survived. We quickly pulled together a meeting and planned what we would do next – fly her parents out, travel to meet them, break the news to her peers and colleagues. There were topo maps and a blown-up copy of her ID photo. We held our collective breath all day, waiting to hear and hoping we wouldn’t have to do the next parts of the plan – the parts that started with, “in case we hear the worst.”
Just before the end of the day, before more people got on planes to fly to the desert, the news came that she had been found. She hadn’t even known she was missing, actually, and must have been surprised, when she returned from hiking, to learn that people were looking for her.
I’m not sure what in this story says kinship to me, except that we will all drop everything to find someone who is lost. We will amass resources and time and energy, and will commit adrenaline and money and concern and fear and worry for someone else’s daughter, whom we have never met.
Somehow in the heart of this crisis is a way that we are all connected. We think, what if it was my sister, my daughter, my friend? What if it was me out there, bitten by a snake or fallen off a ledge? And we are so relieved, so happy that she was found safe.
I’m not very biblical, but I couldn’t help thinking, “'For this son of mine was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found.' So they began to celebrate.”
No comments:
Post a Comment