Even the reporters are choked up. What the monster tornado tore up in Moore, Oklahoma is tearing at our hearts.
Houses gone. Neighborhoods gone. Schools gone. Children. Gone.
People wandering the streets "like zombies," trying to figure out where their house was. Parents waiting in the mud, looking for some shred of hope that their child is somehow alive beneath the rubble of their school. Children in shelters, wondering if they'll ever see their parents again.
The photos, the stories, the video images - they defy words. Some of them have struck a pretty deep chord in my heart.
Like the team from Joplin, Missouri, hurrying to help people in a way only they can. Two years ago, it was part of their town that vanished in the deadliest twister ever. They know how having your world erased in a moment feels.
It's strange. The worst things that happen to us become the compassion and comfort we have to treat other wounded people. Those who've been hurt become heroes of healing for others who are bleeding.
Somehow our pain has meaning when we can use it rebuild someone else's life. I call it crud-entials. How the crud of your life qualifies you to help a hurting world.
I was touched, too, by the directive given by the rescuers at the leveled Plaza Towers Elementary School. Knowing there were children in that rubble, the first responders asked everyone to be quiet. "So we can listen for voices."
That's what I want to be better at. Stopping the chatter so I can listen for the voices of people in trouble.
They're all around us. If we have ears to hear their cries.
