The Blog of mamapolo

Dear EP friends:

This cyber experience is odd. It cuts through all the fog and barriers that exist in the 'real' world and I find my heart careening through space, attaching itself to people I really don't know at all, people I would not recognize if they sat down next to me at a coffee shop.

Yet I know more about them, in some cases, than I know about my longest-enduring, closest friends. I know what they say about themselves, at least. In this venue, I know something of their dreams and wishes - some (to me) darkish, some uplifting. In this venue, they sometimes talk about their deepest fears, their self-loathing, their triumphs, their loves.

You don't get a whole lot of that in the real world. We have unplugged our psychic pain meters because we could not survive if our receivers tuned in to all those "I am hurting" messages emanating from strangers at the subway station, at the airport, in hospital waiting rooms, in the vehicle next to us at the red light.

In the real world, sometimes an automobile strikes an old man and passersby weave their paths around him as he lies helpless in the street, without bothering to dial 3 numbers on the omnipresent cell phone.

Here, a cry for help and prayer is met with an outpouring of messages and support and even a plea to the general EP populace by a kind man who calls people he knows but I don't in a rally to support. HappySailor is the FEMA coordinator of EP.

Most importantly, your prayers have been effectual. My husband was sinking beneath the waves of a three-month physical perfect storm. He has not been rescued yet, he is still bobbing helplessly in the sea, but your prayers have given him a life-jacket and I can hear the beat of the helicopter rotor and I can see the strong beam of its searchlight. I have to wait on shore while the experts do what they are trained to do.

When he is back beside me and can hear my voice, I will tell him of those in the crowd of strangers who stopped on the street, who recognized the pain of others and allowed it to touch them and interrupt their momentum, who lifted his head gently and placed their folded overcoat between him and the cruel blacktop, who dialed the eternal 911 dispatcher and spoke to God when He answered.

I believe in the efficacy of prayer. I have seen its power on countless occasions. There is another, less-spoken of value, however. It is the power of the willingness to pray, the comfort to the helpless wife in the ICU waiting room who knows that people she doesn't know, not really, took minutes out of their too-short day to make a plea for her beloved's healing.

"What goes around, comes around," is usually used as a threat, as a sanction for bad behavior. I believe it also applies as a reward. I pray for every one of you that what goes around DOES come around, and that when you need it, someone in that crowd of strangers takes off their overcoat and speaks gently to you until help arrives.

Love,

Mamapolo