disaster

Changed and transformed

/ Fran Haley / 14 Comments

This week, my friends from across the country have reached out to see if my family and I are okay in the wake of Hurricane Helene.

We are. Here in central North Carolina we did not suffer damage like the western part of the state, where many people are dead and many more are still missing. East of us, a tornado flattened buildings in a city where my youngest son once served as a church worship leader.

Speaking of my son: He was in the North Carolina mountains when the storm struck. He and his bride spent the last day of their honeymoon without power, food, and water, trapped by downed trees on the only path to the main road. After someone eventually arrived with a chainsaw, my new daughter-in-law navigated their journey out by using her phone to pull up road closings.

They were fortunate to even have cell service. Thoughout the region, service failed just when it was needed most. It has yet to be restored in many places, meaning that families and friends still cannot communicate with loved ones.

Travel remains precarious. 300 roads are still closed, many of which are shattered with portions and bridges washed away. Mudslides added to the havoc of catastrophic flooding. The picturesque little village of Chimney Rock has been wiped out; “there’s nothing there,” says one eyewitness, except muddy brown water and debris choking swollen Lake Lure. A clogged sea of splintered wood and trash. A friend of mine was in Boone like my son during the deluge and saw a house carried off by the river; it floated away before her eyes. Asheville, a favorite destination and home to the famous Biltmore, is devastated. My husband and I watched the news unfolding and saw this beautiful city submerged. It looks wartorn. We no longer recognize the familiar streets where we love to walk. Recovery will extend well into next year, meaning that the major tourist season and local income is also destroyed.

We North Carolinians know that bodies are still being recovered (some from trees) and that the extent of the damage is not fully depicted in the news.

Words that keep recurring in the reports are transformed and changed. The mountain communities have been “utterly transformed and cut off from the outside world.” An artist with the River Arts District of Asheville, a hub of warehouses converted to thriving studios, galleries, music venues, and businesses, spoke to its ruination: “This changes everything.”

Loss does change everything. Life is forever categorized into before and after. Overcoming is a long, arduous journey, moment by moment, like breathing. Even though restoration may eventually diminish the pain of loss, soul-scars remain with us as long as we live. We are changed.

For those of you who pray, please do so for the victims of Helene. For those of you with means, please offer any help you can to organizations taking donations for those who have lost all. My school, my church, my community are doing so.

I think of the process of refining gold. I will not apply it to suffering and loss but to the effort of alleviating them. In this act, I believe, we are most transformed… in responding to the alchemy of the Spirit working in us to love our neighbors as ourselves.

It changes everything.

with thanks to all of you reached out to check on my family this week
and to my fellow Spiritual Journey writers

Seven errors

/ Fran Haley / 23 Comments

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Malcolm Gladwell is one of my favorite writers.

In Outliers there’s a chapter entitled “The Ethnic Theory of Plane Crashes” in which Gladwell states: “The typical accident involves seven consecutive human errors.”

He’s writing of Korean Air, which had a disproportionately high number of plane crashes before the airline “turned itself around.”

Gladwell says that the seven errors are the result of a lack of communication and teamwork, not a lack of technical skill or flying knowledge. One or two errors doesn’t lead to disaster; the trouble is that they keep happening, and this compounding causes the crashes.

I am thinking that making seven consecutive human errors can lead to other kinds of accidents.

Such as the one I had last week.

A quick setting of the stage: My school participated in a county-wide book drive for students who don’t have books at home. We collected 1500 books. I had to count and store the books until they could be delivered to the drop-off location; a colleague helped me in this effort. We used a lot of boxes, as overfilling would make them too heavy to lift. The only place to store so many boxes was under a stairwell, where they waited, sealed and ready, for a member of the PTA  board who graciously offered to pick them up for us.

Now, I test the theory: Were there seven consecutive errors in communication and teamwork that led to my accident? Here’s what happened:

  1. The PTA person never gave me a time for picking up the books.
  2. Another person volunteered to help pick up books. I wasn’t told this.
  3. When the person I wasn’t told about showed up, the receptionist sent the custodial staff to move the boxes of books from the stairwell. I wasn’t told this, either.
  4. I went to investigate why the boxes were being moved. The custodial staff said they didn’t know this person who had arrived for the books.
  5. The person turned out to be a very helpful parent, but, having to unravel what was going on, and not expecting the books to go that day, I couldn’t remember where I put the form with the book count. This parent needed to take it to the people at the drop-off. Where was that form?
  6. My colleague said she taped it to one of the boxes. But which box? It had to be found. Simply making a duplicate form could result in an incorrect, doubled amount at the drop-off.
  7. I rushed into the stairwell, under the staircase. I moved box after box. When I couldn’t find the form, preoccupied with where it might be, and with the parent already there to get the books, I stood up in a hurry—and bashed the top of my skull against the bottom of the staircase.

Hard enough to knock me down.

Hard enough for my teeth to smash together.

Hard enough to chip a crown.

I say an accident involves seven consecutive human errors in communication and teamwork, all right.

The aftermath: My mouth hurt the most at the time. When I finally checked the top of my head, I couldn’t even find a tender place where it struck the staircase. No concussion. No bleeding at all. And the crown was replaced by a gracious dentist who was willing to take me, a complete stranger, as an immediate emergency case.

I’m fine.

The missing form?

It was on my table the whole time, right where I left it.