Fire and Smoke

“Surreal scenes unfold as a fire ‘like Armageddon’ barrels toward West Hills," screamed an L.A. Times headline yesterday. TV coverage of the Woolsey Fire confirmed this, as did a number of evacuees interviewed by news teams.

“Armageddon,” said one. “Apocalyptic," said another. Shelters for the displaced are set up; freeways closed; Pepperdine University students ordered to shelter in place. Some people camped out on Zuma Beach.
  
You’d think we’d be used to these disasters in California, but we’re not.  A whole town, Paradise, burned to the ground? The entire city of Malibu mandated to evacuate, as well as thousands of others in Calabasas, Agoura, Hidden Hills, Bell Canyon, parts of Thousand Oaks and Simi? Homes --some million dollar homes - totally destroyed, people losing everything, some losing their very lives.
 
Outside, the air smelled of smoke. I decided to stay indoors.
  
It was in December of last year that I spoke about the wildfires and high winds accelerating the spread. Then it was burning hillsides, evacuations, people driving through walls of fire, first responders battling blazes on the ground while tankers and helicopters made drops of water and fire retardant.
  
It was all very  heartbreaking and sad. Eventually the fire was contained; recovery for some is probably still going on. Now we have a repeat, and it’s worse. Residents of Thousand Oaks hadn’t recovered from the mass shooting of a few days earlier, and now this.
  
Even though we can get sucked into negative thinking by all this going on in our world of conditions, we can still feel gratitude in the enormous effort made by all the personnel and resources mobilized yet again for this devastating firestorm.
  
Through the Internet I found resources, such as the Red Cross and other volunteer organizations where we can donate funds, supplies, shelter, humanitarian help for animals and more. We know we’ll get through this, and we can also offer our prayers, our Spiritual Mind Treatments of healing love, in support.
 
 I looked in Ernest Holmes’ Science of Mind for something inspirational, and found this brief Meditation: (p.537)

“Despair gives way to joy at the thought of Thee, Indwelling Good.

I cannot be sad when I think of Thee.
My sorrow is turned to gladness and my shame to rejoicing.
My tears are wiped away and the sunlight of the Spirit shines
  through the clouds of depression and lights the way to Heaven.
 Thy Joy has made me glad.”    

And so it is.