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A Flood of Emotion
In my Shakespeare class this semester, we have repeatedly heard the lament of characters who wish the whole world would stop when their world stops.
O insupportable, O heavy hour!
Methinks it should be now a huge eclipse
Of sun and moon, and that th'affrighted globe
Should yawn at alteration. (Othello 5.2.107-10)
When Desdemona dies, Othello expects the sun to darken and an earthquake to shake the ground beneath him. It doesn't. There is no eclipse and the earth stays firm and still.
I'm flying back to school from Thanksgiving break while pondering how my life is going on just the same, while my hometown, Cedar Rapids, is not the same at all. I had almost forgotten about the flood (it's really easy to forget anything about Midwestern weather at Carolina) until we drove through downtown on the way back from the airport. I saw all the windows still boarded up and smelled the mold that still lingered around the river. But at school, when I think of Cedar Rapids, I think of it how it was before last June. Maybe not bustling, maybe not the most chic city on earth, but prosperous and unharmed. Driving through downtown during Thanksgiving break was a big wake-up call.
The library will not reopen for three years, my mom said as we drove past the building where I'd spent so many Saturdays reading Roald Dahl and Judy Blume.
In real-life Cedar Rapids, downtown feels almost deserted, with only a few resolute business owners lighting up the OPEN signs in their windows. But in my mind, everything is normal. The Blue Strawberry and Bruegger's are still serving up bagels and coffee, my mom, dad, and sister are still eating gyros from Pita's once or twice a week, Dr. Tyler is still cleaning teeth just two blocks from the river and we are still the only city besides Paris with its capital buildings on an island. For me, everything is still normal--I'm in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, and in my mind, Cedar Rapids is completely intact.
The rest of the world--the rest of my world, my life at Carolina had been going on in its usual routine, while Cedar Rapids scrambled to begin the rebuilding process, in the midst of an economic crisis to boot. Suddenly I was Othello, struck with disbelief that the entire world did not yawn at the alteration. It seemed like the world had forgotten my hometown, and I was ashamed that I had, too.
Somewhere between guilt and apathy, there is a balance. Of course the whole world is not mourning the flooded downtown of a mid-size city in the Midwest--though when it's your mid-size city, you feel like it should. Flying back to North Carolina, the view from the plane reminds me that even those huge events, those events that make us brace for an earthquake or a heavenly eclipse, look like the movement of little toy houses and cars from the right perspective. The river that swelled, forced the hospital to evacuate, destroyed homes and ruined an entire floor of library books suddenly looked like a little blue curvy line drawn in a field of green and brown. Shakespeare's characters were wrong to assume the whole world would yawn at alteration, just because their world was altered. Somehow guilt (how can I just go on as normal?) and apathy (I'm at college, what does this have to do with me?) must be tempered into empathy, a much more constructive emotion. Soon I'll be back at Carolina, and everything, for me, will be just like normal. But I can do something: I can replace that idyllic memory of Cedar Rapids with the real Cedar Rapids, closed library and all. The whole world will not change just because one city flooded, but my world can and should. The real Cedar Rapids deserves a place in my prayers.
By
Erin Becker
|
December 2, 2008; 2:41 PM ET
| Category:
Tar Heel Testament
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Posted by: wanda | December 23, 2008 10:01 PM
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how do you deal with people you do not care for?
Posted by: wanda | December 23, 2008 10:01 PM
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The sermon "Learning in War-Time," by C. S. Lewis, addresses similar issues. It was written at the outset of World War II, when many at Oxford were wondering "with all that happening, what are we doing here?" There are several synopses on the Web; here's a link to one:
http://ryskamp.org/brain/philosophy/notes-from-learning-in-wartime
Posted by: Chip | December 4, 2008 9:43 PM
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Here’s a million dollar question – If you were to die right now, would you qualify for the celestial kingdom? If you’re like most Mormons, you’re not sure. You try hard to be as good as possible, but you still don’t know if you’ve done enough. If the Book of Mormon is really scripture, this hope will always elude you. Alma 11:37 says God cannot save you in your sins. Are all of your sins forgiven? Moroni 10:32 says you must be perfected in Christ, which can only be done by denying yourself of “all ungodliness”. Have you done that? Do you repent on a regular basis? Is so, then it is clear that you sin on a regular basis, since only those who break the commandments need to repent. 1 Nephi 3:7 states that you are able to keep His commandments. In fact according to D&C 25:15, you are required to keep them continually! Since you haven’t done this so far, why assume you will in the future? Of course, we should all try to be holy; but if you think that sinning less will qualify you to live in God’s presence, you are mistaken (Gal 3:1-11). The assumption that good works are required for forgiveness only cheapens Christ’s atonement, making it nothing more than a partial payment. God chooses to justify us by faith. Jesus alone does the “perfecting” (Heb 10:14). God gives peace to those who trust in Him alone. If you don’t have this peace, it’s probably because at least a part of you trusts in yourself. Questions? Visit us at www.gotforgiveness.com
Posted by: Ty | December 3, 2008 7:38 PM
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Erin, you ROCK!
Posted by: Lisa Butler | December 3, 2008 4:57 PM
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how do you deal with people you do not care for?