Tuesday, March 15, 2011

Trying not to Panic

More of last year's flowers... these were not even at my house, they were in a local park.

I am listening to the news since I just got home.  It is horrifying.  How can 6 nuclear energy plants melting down not impact the whole world?

I was on one of the units today at work and was struck by the fact that the patients were sitting in the dayroom, glued to the television set - watching the coverage of Japan.  My friend, who has the ability to tell them to knock it off, just questioned staff on the unit, but did not mandate that it stop.  I cannot imagine how it could be beneficial for a patient in a psychiatric hospital to watch this all day long.

I had meetings at work all day long.  I had one tonight.  I only managed to get 4 miles in on the treadmill.  I flew from one thing to another all day long.  I have not got enough hours in the day for all I am trying to do.

And then in the middle of my day, I went to a nearby church for Eucharistic Adoration.  It was like an island of paradise in my day.

There were eight other people in the chapel with me!  At noon, on a weekday, eight people took time out of their days to go kneel with Our Lord.

Say what you will about the world going to hell in a hand basket, the fact that wherever I go to Adoration, there are others kneeling there with me tells me a different story.  It is a good story.

The Truth.  The objective Truth.

Thank You Lord Jesus.

6 comments:

  1. The people of Japan are really suffering right now but we can help them with our prayers (and donations). The nuclear situation is frightening and no doubt there will be terrible repercussions from it. Another reason we must pray!
    It's good to hear that there are usually others at adoration too. Very often there are only one or two people in the church when I go.

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  2. I am not sure if our sentiments of sympathy, empathy and prayers answer our questions.

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  3. I know you're worried about the reactors, but worst case it will not be as bad Chyrnoble (sp?) and while that was bad it wasn't devastating. The reactors are not going to blow up and spew contamination for miles. The worst case is that the fissionable material heats up so that no containment can hold it and it penetrates into the ground and water. That's bad and japan will have quite a clean up problem, but it's not going to kill thousands of people. But let's pray that they can control the heat. That is the key. But there will not be a nuclear explosion. Be assured of that. Even these little explosions they've had this week are not explosions of propellants or bombs. These are over pressures of steam. The news media is driving people bananas with their language and suggestions.

    If you want to keep daily tabs from real engineering perspective, keep tabs on this blog from MIT nuclear engineering:
    http://mitnse.com/. They are way better than the media, though a bit will go over your head I'm sure. If you click the "Technical" tab they give some rudimentary lessons on nuclear engineering.

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  4. Thanks Manny. I appreciate that info. The whole thing is so emotionally charged, and most of us don't know a thing about nuclear power, which makes it even scarier.

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  5. hmm, thought I commented on this earlier, but I guess I didn't. I'm very glad you were able to get away to spend some time in Adoration. I was able to get to Mass tonight. I'm such a crank and so out of sorts when I can't get there in the morning. How lovely to think of people giving up some time at Noon to be with the Lord.

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  6. I wrote up a blog explaining in more detail what's going on with the Japanese reactors.

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