| Sunny Side Up! March 28, 2001 Copyright 2001, Kathleen Gibson Ready For the Big One? Chilliwack B.C. At exactly 10:58 a.m. on Wednesday, February 28th the pendulum clock on my parents' dining room wall skipped a beat and stopped. Around the same time a toilet in a Port Coquitlam basement, then occupied by my niece, commenced to rock. Her stomach did a flip, she thought she should get to a doorframe, but she wondered wildly if she should wash, flush, or wipe, and in what order. In Nanaimo, a close friend heard an unfamiliar, ominous noise. "What is that?" she asked her youngest daughter. "Must be Izzy," said Carleen. That cat likes big, noisy trouble. A second later the chandelier above the table began to sway. "We should move to a doorframe," my friend said fast. "No, we should hide under the table," she said faster. They got up to get down. And it all stopped. In those same seconds the lights went out in the Coquitlam Montessori school where my sister was teaching music. The preschoolers at her feet started buzzing. "What was that? What was that? What was that?" She hushed them. " I�ll see. Perhaps we blew a breaker." "Blew a breaker, blew a breaker, blew a breaker," the children repeated. A voice called from the stairwell. "Mrs. Bauman, please bring the children outside immediately. There has been an earthquake." "An earthquake! And earthquake! An earthquake!" cried the children, scrambling upstairs. I�ve been hearing stories about how my British Columbian friends and relatives experienced the tremors sent out by the latest Seattle earthquake. They've made me laugh � and think. �If this was the big one, we wouldn�t have been prepared.� The realization rolled in with the tremor. Finding a doorframe to stand in was not the best thing to do - seeking refuge under a large table and holding for dear life to a leg is better, say the earthquake sages. Who knew? Only those paying close attention to the latest earthquake information. Information usually tossed in waste bins. My sister experienced the blackout, but the school where she teaches was built to seismic standards. It didn�t even hiccup. Seattle experts say that without the prior decade of seismic preparations for just such a disaster, the resulting damage and injury would have been far worse. Preparedness is everything. Whether for an earthquake, or a lifequake. The true test of a vital faith is how one responds to a lifequake. I�ve failed a few tests because I didn�t do the essential preparatory work - the regular shoring up of my soul�s deepest foundations with quiet meditation, prayer, scripture, joyful worship. These disciplines, encouraged regularly from the pulpits of our land � they are for our benefit, so we can weather the quakes with whole souls, and be strong enough to assist a neighbour, too. Yet merrily we roll along. On average, we face a major life crisis every five years. Could be the big one�s coming our way any time. But there�s a sunny side - souls too, can be reinforced to seismic standards. |