It's a Small World After All

I sometimes wonder if I am living in a book as technology and science race us into an ever more amazing world. I moan like we all do about the evils of our world - the noise, the haste, the stress but sometimes I am overwhelmed by the miracles that take place every day.

As I sit here on the sofa I have the TV on with live coverage of the mine rescue. I have to stop every now and then to see another man winched to the surface in that incredibly small capsule. I have seen three come up now and each one has made me cry.

The miracle is not just that they survived or that they have been rescued but that we can all share in it. We watch it live, as it happens and take it for granted and yet this wouldn't have been possible fifty years ago. I can sit and watch, write this and talk to friends who are also watching in the US, Australia and here in the UK.. It is truly amazing.

There is some deep need within us all to believe in the good men do and the Chilean rescue answers that - we see salvation and rescue from our most basic fears, buried deep underground - a living death that moves to rebirth and resurrection. It is astonishingly moving to see that tiny torpedo rise out of an equallly tiny hole with a man inside, to see the look on the faces of those that are greet him and then to see that first real human contact - the hug of greeting. We all need the touch of another sometimes but surely never so much as a man buried underground for 69 days.

On days like today I am glad to be alive at this moment in history - glad to be part of the miracle that we all take for granted.