Japan….

I feel disconnected.

I don't have a television and I poach the internet off a gracious neighbor of mine. It's slow speed so I barely get CNN. In this day and age, information is transferred quickly.
There is an earthquake and the ripples move fast across continents into blackberry's, iPhones and iPads, CNN and Satellite television. I am oblivious. I can only hear Norman Rockwell style, through word of mouth and the boy on the corner with the newspaper in his hand.
Bold headlines and staggering photographs. I can only imagine.
I remember 9/11 in NYC and even then, with cable TV and working just blocks from where it happened, smoke pluming above head, I was oblivious.
I was there and questions were being asked faster than news was able to answer...and that was an attack. When the earth attacks and I only get snippets of information and photographs that look like Godzilla has attacked, people running in fear, I almost don't know where to begin in response.
I watched the tsumami gobble up boats and homes like they were tick tacs and popsicle sticks. The earth can be bold in its movement of upheaval. From so far away I can donate money. My skill can only go so far. But when you are feeling helpless, a praying hand can aid the helping hands.
I can teach a class and gather our intentions toward peace and strength for those who need it most right now.
Hope, peace and strength...and love. If I can give more, I will. But right now, this is what we can do.

Once you choose hope, anything's possible. ~Christopher Reeve

When the world says, "Give up," Hope whispers, "Try it one more time." - Unknown

There is nothing so well known as that we should not expect something for nothing - but we all do and call it Hope. ~Edgar Howe

Hope is that thing with feathers that perches in the soul and sings the tune without the words and never stops... at all. ~Emily Dickinson

Hope begins in the dark, the stubborn hope that if you just show up and try to do the right thing, the dawn will come. ~Anne Lamott

All it takes is one bloom of hope to make a spiritual garden. ~Terri Guillemets

The miserable have no other medicine But only hope.~William Shakespeare

Be faithful in small things because it is in them that your strength. - Mother Teresa

Only one who devotes himself to a cause with his whole strength and soul can be a true master. For this reason mastery demands all of a person. -Albert Einstein

You've gotta have hope. Without hope life is meaningless. Without hope life is meaning less and less. ~Author Unknown

Hope is faith holding out its hand in the dark. ~George Iles

What doesn't kill us makes us stronger. 
-Friedrich Nietzsche

Hope is putting faith to work when doubting would be easier. ~Author Unknown

Hope is necessary in every condition. The miseries of poverty, sickness, of captivity, would, without this comfort, be insupportable. ~Samuel Johnson

Courage is not the absence of fear,
but rather the judgment that something else is more important than fear.
-Ambrose Redmoon

Take hope from the heart of man and you make him a beast of prey. ~Ouida

Tenderness and kindness are not signs of weakness and despair
but manifestations of strength and resolution. 
-Kahlil Gibran

Nothing is so strong as gentleness
and nothing is so gentle as real strength. 
-Frances de Sales

Strength does not come from physical capacity.
It comes from an indomitable will. 
-Mahatma Gandhi

Hope is but the dream of those who wake. ~Matthew Prior

Hope is grief's best music. ~Author Unknown

There is no hope unmingled with fear, and no fear unmingled with hope. ~Baruch Spinoza

Hope never abandons you, you abandon it. ~George Weinberg

Some see a hopeless end, while others see an endless hope. ~Author Unknown

Hope is like a road in the country; there was never a road, but when many people walk on it, the road comes into existence. ~Lin Yutang

If you knew everything was really all right, and that it has a happy ending, you would not feel trepidations about your future - Abraham-Hicks

The antidote to frustration is a calm faith, not in your own cleverness, or in hard toil, but in God's guidance- Norman Vincent Peale

Optimism is the faith that leads to achievement. Nothing can be done without hope and confidence. - Helen Keller

No matter how steep the mountain - the Lord is going to climb it with you. - Helen Steiner Rice

Faith is a bird that feels dawn breaking and sings while it is still dark.- Rabindranath Tagore

When the heart weeps for what is lost, the spirit laughs for what it has found. – Sufi Aphorism

Sorrow looks back, worry looks around, faith looks up. - Unknown

Hope is a waking dream. Aristotle

Faith is daring the soul to go beyond what the eyes can see. William Newton Clark

Take the first step in faith. You don't have to see the whole staircase, just take the first step. Martin Luther King, Jr.

Hope is always available to us. When we feel defeated, we need only take a deep breath and say, "Yes," and hope will reappear. – Monroe Forester

You must not lose faith in humanity. Humanity is an ocean; if a few drops of the ocean are dirty, the ocean does not become dirty. –Mohandas Gandhi

We must accept finite disappointment, but never lose infinite hope. - Martin Luther King, Jr.

If we did all the things we are capable of doing,
we would literally astound ourselves. 
-Thomas Edison

In our hearts,

Lady