How Can We Help?

How Can We Help?
I have been feeling helpless in the face of the hurricane devastation, hearing stories that are grueling and intense, seeing images that fill me with a sense of powerlessness. What can I do, one person living in Salt Lake City, Utah? I have been tempted to just get in my car and drive there so that my hands could be put to use. How can I make any kind of difference in the face of so completely enormous a crisis? I believe that prayer does matter, and so I have been sending my thoughts and strength across to those people in the hot, crowded stadium, to those who are still stranded on roofs or in trees, to those who are searching for ways of making sense out of this tragedy. We may not be able to make sense out of it, or ever understand why things like this happen. But we can come together and share our fears, be together as a religious community and send our collective prayers to those in Mississippi, in New Orleans. We are with you. We are waiting for ways to help. With our opening words every Sunday, we welcome those to our community who have an “open mind, a generous heart and willing hands.” May our minds remain open in the face of this crisis, may we use our hearts as expansive centers of loving power, sending that energy across the country and the world where it is needed, and may we put our willing hands to use in whatever ways we find.