Article August 11, 2003 Issue

The earth moved ... BUT GOD DIDN'T

By Richard Bergenheim

I Woke Suddenly around three in the morning. I was away on vacation in Hawaii, and something was wrong. I realized everything was shaking. It was a small earthquake. I had never experienced an earthquake before, and it was a little unnerving. Where I live in New York, earthquakes are rare and often so low in magnitude that few people would even notice them.

This earthquake was unsettling, not because of the danger but because something I took for granted changed. The earth was supposed to be stable, solid, unmovable. It's not that I didn't know about earthquakes. I had just never experienced one before—and so I expected the ground under my feet to stay still.

There are lots of things in life that we expect to be stable and dependable. Unfortunately, people experience all kinds of earthquakes, which result in their foundations of comfort or assurance being shaken. Infidelity can rock a marriage. Business mergers or bankruptcies can throw people out of work. A severe downturn in the stock market can wreak havoc with people's college or retirement plans. The passing away of close friends or family members reveals how much we leaned on them for support and happiness.

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