D is for DISASTER

I was still at primary school when the slag tip came down the mountain and buried a generation. I remember watching the grainy, monochrome pictures on the television, for days afterwards as the rescuers attempted to find signs of life beneath the rubble and the black sludge until they were eventually no longer in rescue mode. And so began a salvage operation, trying to find every little body whose unexpected last breath had taken place in the very building where they probably felt so secure. Aberfan always sticks in my mind, not because I was old enough to be aware of the full impact of such a disaster but because I could see the pain etched in my mum’s face and my dad’s words as they came to terms with the thought of so many parents losing children who were roughly the same age as their own. For years afterwards, I bought the newspapers on the 'important' anniversaries of the disaster and read with more understanding, the complexities of the cause and the simple awfulness of loss. 2006 was the fortieth anniversary of the event and for the first time since it happened, once again I viewed the black and white pictures of my childhood, the desolate scene, the demolished school, the queue of hearses on their way to the graveyard and the trench-like grave containing a row of tiny coffins and a whole generation. And of course the survivors, those fortunate enough to escape the black death but never able to escape the memories that remain fresh with every anniversary and not just the 'important' ones.

I was much older when the Herald of Free Enterprise ferry capsized one cold night near the port of Zeebrugge and almost two hundred people lost their lives in shallow water and calm conditions. The television pictures were now in colour but the horror was grey and the darkness of that late winter evening only added to the confusion of what was actually happening.

Only a year earlier we had all witnessed, in colour, the space shuttle Challenger, explode shortly after lift off, in front of families and a world wide audience, killing all seven astronauts on board and seventeen years later, view a similar tragedy and loss of life as Columbia disintegrated on return to earth. Only two years previously, the most terrifying disaster of our modern age had been broadcast around the world one morning as two planes destroyed the tallest buildings in New York in a matter of a few minutes and we all watched the event unfold with disbelief as people died before our eyes and others showed superhuman courage in the face of such incredible danger, courage which cost many brave heroes their lives. And television once again brought disaster into our living rooms as we visually eavesdropped on the far side of the world just after Christmas and saw the damage that Mother Nature can wreak through a Tsunami and how over two hundred thousand people can cease to exist.

So when I hear people talk about their day , their performance in an exam, their baking, their football team's result or their interview being a disaster, I wonder have they really stopped to consider what they've actually said. My dictionary describes such as a 'calamitous event occurring suddenly and usually with great loss of life.' Now I've had my share of bad days, disappointing exams, poor football results and the occasional collapsed Pavlova but none have been calamitous and certainly not disastrous. But the lesson I learn from all of the events above is not just the terrible loss of life but that they happened within reach of safety yet there was no time left to get help. Doesn't that worry you when you think about how near you can be to the safety and security of a heavenly Father and yet be lost, because when He comes or calls, there is no time left to send out an SOS. And the Bible tells us in Matthew's Gospel 'No one knows about that day or hour, not even the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father.' Wouldn't it be a disaster to miss it?