04.09.09
Earthquakes
Since moving to Italy, from time to time we feel a little rumble in the earth. Never anything large, and often something that you’re not sure you really felt until you read in the paper or see on the news that there was a tremor.
This week the city of L’Aquila in central Italy was hit with a powerful earthquake that, as of this moment, killed over 200 people and has left thousands homeless. We’re fine here in Ancona. As a church we’re trying to figure out the best way to help. We’ve been overwhelmed with people writing and calling to ask if we’re OK.
Jasmina Tešanović has written a very beautiful summary of what life is like in L’Aquila right now:
As I watch the TV, I know this is not a science fiction disaster movie, this is the new realism. Only last night the same television showed me an old movie with Ana Magnani: the post war late 1940s in Italy. It seemed so different: the good guys had defeated the bad guys. There was hope. Watching these high tech rescue squads, ambulances heavy with gear and with high pitched Italian sirens, politicians in Armani suits with Missoni ties, blonde sexy news announcers with cosmetic lip surgery, all scampering among the ruins, I feel uneasy. Where are the real people? Whatever became of normal life? Trained dogs sniff for normal life beneath the rubble.
You can read the entire article here. Please note that the website this article is posted at occasionally posts some off-color items. Browse carefully…
Keep praying.