Nuclear Giving

Japan, the only nation that has felt the horror of atomic warfare, the only nation to taste the terror of nuclear destruction and radiation poisoning, is staring once again into the darkness created by subatomic particles--such a small nation to stare twice into the maw of a true Godzilla.

Many hero songs could be sung of those who risked their lives to save another from the watery grip of the tsunami. Many responded beyond their own known limits of courage to save. Now this bravery is of the enduring kind for most. But there is a small group, 55 reportedly, who dare enter that even-more-terrible terror inside the nuclear reactor. They do it repeatedly, routinely in order to keep a worse tragedy from befalling those they know and love and even those they don’t know.

They face almost certain death from radiation poisoning. Yet they return; these men who have the knowledge and skill to do that which is increasingly hazardous but so very necessary. Their deaths will not be pleasant. Their nation knows this well; 65 years is not too long a time for some to have known someone who died from it. Yet they go back into the curtain of invisible death.

Their giving is of an entirely different order of magnitude from mine. I am humbled by their gift. My paltry dollars, my few moments of giving cost me little and I’ve already spoken of the joy that is my reward. Their giving dwarfs mine, an Atlas to a microbe. Theirs is Christ –level giving. He said, “Greater love has no man than this: that he give his life for his friends.” (New Testament, Book of John, Chapter 15, verse 13). He gave the same way. He would understand these men. He and they walk the same road. Knowing what is before, they walk steadily away from safety to their own death, but into life for others.

It is not to shame you or guilt me that I think these thoughts; but rather to put all giving onto a continuum. Mine is a small gift; theirs larger than life. But we share this: that we are giving; that we know the contentment of giving and reap the reward of that peace that is beyond speech or comprehension—the experience itself. I can’t truly know their feelings and thoughts. But I can, from this small perspective and from this long distance, know for a certainty that they are doing this from the same heart as I; from the same well of caring. They could not do what they do with just courage. Their motivation must come from a deeper place, from love itself.

May we who will survive this disaster be enriched by their gift and freed to give even dearer gifts.