SOS: The Universal Call for Help

A Prayer for All Those Who Care

Photo by Mohammad Amin Javid on Unsplash

SOS—is the universal call for help. SOS—means “Save Our Souls.”  This is the work of First Responders in a crisis or natural disaster, such as have now in Western North Carolina.  This mountain area is in crisis and this crisis has many layers to recover from now. We are bracing for a marathon of caring. This is not going to be an easy fix.

Aid workers show up when a soul is in trouble. These dear folks, show up anywhere people are in trouble.  Now, caring people from all over, have come here because of the plea for someone—anyone to “Save Our Souls.”

Just yesterday, Gwen and I met a power crew from Quebec Canada, hard at work in the forest working feverishly to restore power to the most remote places and spaces you might imagine. The forest is thick. The roads are washed out.  It’s a mess.

I am hearing the steady sirens of ambulances and fire trucks who are responding to emergency calls for help. Chain saws are buzzing. The Calvary has arrived. There is much, much devastation in the world and in the hearts of those who have suffered so much loss.

Let me assure you if you have seen the images of our hard hit areas, it is even worse to be a witness of this natural disaster with one’s own eyes. Just yesterday in our little mountain town, two people were arrested over a brawl at the gas station. People need gas to run generators to get water, keep things cold and to have a bit of light in the darkness. Things are tense. People are numb. The shock is wearing off now and people are becoming aware of what is going to need to happen to recover. A disaster is called a disaster because something devastating has happened. There are many layers of a disaster to work through.

But what of the caregivers?  What about the SOS calls that Firefighters, First Responders, Doctors, Nurses and Power Crews are holding privately in their own hearts? 

Are we hearing them yet? Who is hearing their call for help, as they give and give and give until we are all found in one way or another?

If you’re new to me and my work, you may not know this but Gwen and I have been in the caring work and ministry for 50 years. We are not new to tragedy. Together, we cared for those who care. People came to us to debrief their work in the natural disasters of the Tsunami in Thailand and the droughts of Sudan. We helped care givers regain their equilibrium and finding themselves at the end of the rope they were hoping to throw to someone in peril.

So, when the natural disaster first hits, all eyes are on the devastation and rightly so. We all help. We all step in. This is what we do. This is who we are as human beings. But, gradually a deeper awareness dawns of us. The care-givers need care as they awaken to absorbing so much pain and trauma in the wake of saving the souls of so many in dire conditions.

This is my concern now.

Who will care for the caregivers?

Some of us were born and trained to care. But, all of us are called to love! What can caring and loving now look like?

Early this morning, I found a prayer I wrote after debriefing emergency responders and workers from the Tsunami in the Far East. I read it and re-worked it for the situation we are in now in Western North Carolina. I wanted to share it with you here. Perhaps, you know of someone who is helping and you too are concerned—not only for those in peril but those who are caring for those who are in peril’s way. Or, perhaps, you are a Care-Giver, sensing your own depletion—sensing in you an exhaustion that you feel in your own soul.

It is exhausting work to care so much.  Human beings cannot give and give and give without being cared for in some basic ways. Caregivers—nurses, doctors, teachers, pastors, over-seas workers, power workers, firemen, police —and any one who cares needs care. Really, aren’t we all called to love?

Every living thing needs care. The flower needs water. The birds need seed. Care Givers are living things, as we all know. They need care and love.

Here is the wisdom to heed: Those who care, need care. 

It’s this simple and it’s this important.

This is a prayer. It’s a prayer because we need help from outside of ourselves and this is a time when many are praying.

(This is the painting by Van Gogh of the Good Samaritan heeding an SOS)

A Prayer of Recovery for All Who Care

-Stephen W. Smith 

Dear God, I have entered the dark in search of souls!

I have absorbed the stress and strain of this disaster in my body, in my head and in my soul.

It’s like this disaster is so so heavy in me. It’s hard to breathe. I cannot catch my breath.

Bring your light into the dungeon so that I can find my way back out. It has been dark—very dark. Show me your light. Let me see my way back into the light.

I have searched, O Lord, to find hearts that are lost; souls that feel trapped, minds that are enslaved and I am weary because of it.

Restore unto me, your comfort and care. I need your footing to find my way back out.I have sought to throw a lifeline to those in peril and because of this, I now need your lifeline for me.

Grip me and pull me through lest I feel abandoned myself. The weight of this devastation brings me down. I am spiraling. Show me the way back out.

I am unaware of what I soak into my own soul in such places; in hearing such sadness. My heart has been too much like a sponge soaking in their pain and I feel their pain and my own. Everything has merged within me.

Have mercy upon me, O Lord. In attempting to stop their bleeding, please, O Lord stop my own. Their hemorrhage has caused me to do the same. I feel messy. Cleanse me, O Lord. They hurt and I have hurt for them; with them.

Now my tears are for them but also for myself and all who try to help.

We are many. We are all in need.

I now need to lay their hurt aside and find my own heart once again. Please help me. Rid me of a cloak of despair. Let me shed the grave clothes of others and walk into the Light. Free me from the tomb and the shackles of others so that I might run once again in freedom and joy.

Where there has been evil, now bring me to peace.Where there has been so much despair, now sow seeds of joy within me.Where there has been buffeting waves, bring me to the ground of my being—the Ground of Your Being.

I want to recover. Speak and I will recover. Say the word, and I will come back to life. Make me attentive today among the timbered trees, rushing wind and birds that sing of the song of life once again.

Help me to practice my own resurrection in hot coffee, a hot shower, sweet smiles of compassion; the hugs from strangers and friends and in watching the birds.

Amen

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Photo by Markus Spiske on Unsplash

Dear Friends, Gwen and I are fine. Grateful to be spared and humbled by all that has happened around us. We have tried to focus on the grief of those we know who are in a hard situation here and to care for our neigbors.

Here is a beautiful and meaningful poem from Emily Dickinson, the great American poet of the 19th Century. I’m so encouraged by Emily’s poem. Sometimes, a poem like this says it all. I aspire to write like her!

If I can stop one heart from breaking,
I shall not live in vain;
If I can ease one life the aching,
Or cool one pain,
Or help one fainting robin
Unto his nest again,
I shall not live in vain.

Emily Dickinson (1830–1886)

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