A Warm Room for Each Family
Listening to NPR this evening they were talking to a relief director from the United Nations. The situation in Pakistan since the earthquake has gotten worse and worse. It is about to be winter in the Himalayan Mountains. There are not enough tents in the world for all those who need even minimal shelter.

The goal has become for workers to go into the mountains and work with families. They are to make sure that each family has one room in their shelter/home/dwelling that is protected from the elements with a small stove. That way every family can have one warm room to be in during the winter.

One room per family. It sounds so simple and basic. Which it is, of course. So much less than most of us in the US would consider simple and basic.

It has been a long year for disasters- natural and otherwise. Starting with the Tsunami (admittedly at the very end of 2004), through bombings in London, Hurricanes all over the Atlantic Basin, and of course, war. It has been a year when we have been challenged over and over to be generous. It has been a year when we have struggled, whether aware or not, with the big questions about God and disasters and right and wrong and punishment or not.

But when put in such simple and basic needs and issues, all the other stuff pales. People are in need of the simplest, even most primitive or primal needs. Food and lodging. The bottom of the hierarchy of needs. Without them all the higher needs and concerns and even thological ponderings are lost.

When push comes to shove it is all about being human and humane. May we never forget that for others and ourselves.