There is a closer connection between the people of this city and the Haitian earthquake victims who we have been watching on television for a week and a day.
The connection is that we are simple people when you boil it all down.
For all of modernity’s ability to make our lives easier, life for all of us remains somewhat primitive compared with what it will be 1,000 years from now.
We have homes or apartments, running water, heat and electricity and health care venues.
We have roads and businesses, food outlets and many, many places to shop.
If this city were hit by a 7.0 Richter scale earthquake as the Haitians were last week, it would be in ruins with most of the residents here losing their homes, their supplies of food and water and the ability to get health care when it is needed.
Everything would be destroyed here as it was destroyed in a relative instant in Haiti.
Our streets and highways would buckle, electricity would go down, there would be no heat during the height of winter and our hospitals trying to deal with tens of thousands of injuries would turn into the madness that we are witnessing in Haiti.
However, the likelihood of such a scenario in Revere is slim. But an earthquake here is always a possibility.
So the difference between the human beings living here and the human beings sent into darkness and suffering in Haiti is not so great.
The line between society working and society savaged is about 40 seconds. That’s how long it took to level Port au Prince.
In that realization, it is incumbent on all of us to do what we can to relieve the pain and suffering of the Haitian people.
By helping them, we help ourselves and the community of man.
And our connection to it.
