Lament of the World Server

Lament of the World Server

The day the World Trade Center was destroyed, 9/11/2001, my Russian friend, Natalia, called me via landline because that’s all there was then.

She cried out emotionally, “I am so sorry to see that you are under attack. It is terrible.”

She had been watching television and was seized by the moment to moment account of the heart-rending and unbelievable tragedy. I didn’t know about it because it was early morning here.

 I spent fifteen years with a nonprofit educational organization working in America and with Russians, Ukrainians and Indians. Russia and its people made a deep impression on me. Russians were so much like Americans. We could communicate and understand each other.

Maybe it was because of our similarities that Russians and Americans together helped over 50,000 people in the Saratov region. Friends were made there and they were the forever kinds of friends. Natalia and I have been friends for over a quarter of a century.

Natalia has the solid indestructible stability of the Rock of Gibraltar.  If your life is in danger, she is a good one to know. She is fluent in several languages, well educated and totally dedicated to helping people overcome the obstacles they have. She is also a person of great integrity, so much so that the Governor chose her to advise him about certain things going on in the region. That’s a thumbnail sketch of Natalia!

After the tragedy at Sandy Hook, she contacted me again terribly upset by what had happened there. My last blog was essentially my comment to her.  She wrote back and her plea was “you revealed everything I was thinking about and wanted to say but did not manage….What kills me the most is the fact that I cannot help. I cannot do anything about it.’

Natalia’s lament is that she wants to help in the situation but cannot.  The outcry of the world server is ‘let me help.  I am willing.’ Hers is the spirit of inclusiveness, wholeness and universality. It made no difference that the Sandy Hook tragedy happened a half-a-world away from her and in another country. She showed that her concern and her energy were there with the suffering people. She would have felt the same if the massacre had been in Norway or Ecuador or South Africa.

Natalia expressed her will to do good. She touched her own humanity. The will she demonstrated is the energy bringing on the seed of the future and giving us hope.

Rebecca A Field