I’ve been away from the blog desk.

Not really.

Too much to absorb; writing seemed to be irrelevant somehow. Observing, reflecting, making notes, all seemed more important, more respectful of the occurrences in our world.

It really is about the oil gushing into the Gulf of Mexico. It really is.

How did we get to such a moment?

Global warming. Mass starvation. Incomprehensible poverty. War. Hatreds abound in many regions, and shrillness everywhere, especially in our political/cultural landscape here.

And the oil just keeps coming….

Pelicans.

Coral.

The life of the sea that has given us life itself on this earth is being spoiled.

In our work in health care, we know that the best way to create health is to prevent those factors that can compromise our health. As in most of the social paradigms under which we are living, prevention is not central to our political and social way of thinking.

And the oil just keeps coming.

It could have been prevented

There is much that I will write about in upcoming blogs about the very specific relevance of the oil spill, how it could have been prevented by empowered teams; and how we all can learn from the team practices that are used in the most dangerous places to protect us all from imminent disaster: the teams that keep our nuclear arsenal safe; the teams that keep nuclear reactors safe; the teams that fly thousands of giant jetliners everyday without incident.

But in this moment, I do not want to dive right into all this science and learning methodology.

Because, the oil just keeps coming, and we are all hurt by this. We are all hurt by poverty; we are all hurt by starvation; we are all hurt by hatreds; we are all hurt by…. noise. We are hurt by homelessness; we are hurt by others’ misfortunes, loss of jobs, loss of homes, loss of family pride.

We are all hurt and we all know it, and we need each other.  No one can look at the Gulf of Mexico and not feel the pain, the pain of the sea, the pain of the shorelines, the pain of the wildlife, the pain of the lost hope of those who thrive on the work that the sea provides, the fishermen, the shrimpers, the people who live in synchronicity with the vast and beautiful sea.

More than anything, who can deny the life-affirming moments we all experience when we stand by the sea, gazing at the wonder of it all? 

The hurt from the oil gushing into the open waters of our sea is a universal hurt. 

I am inspired to use our collective wisdom and trust of one another to find new paradigms for the way in which we act together. There is too much hurt, some made obvious by the oil in the sea. But we do not talk about the thousands of hurts derived from the thousands of causes of the hurts because…we don’t know how.

People want to come together.

Let’s begin with that premise as we go forward.