For most people in the Twin Cities yesterday was spent with split attention….part was on our work, caring for children, running errands, daily tasks….the other on the news of the bridge disaster….who, how, why? The television and radio coverage was filled with stories of near misses, extreme bravery, eye witness accounts and mostly reactions and feelings. In a state that doesn’t think of itself as very emotional, people had the need to talk about how this tragedy has affected them. There were poignant stories and informational ones. All offered with the best intent. Each one connected us in a deeper way….reminded us of what was truly important…..holding loved ones, kissing our children, climbing out of the sea of uncertainty toward understanding how to try to fix what has happened.

Prayers were offered all over the cities, in churches, on streets, in cars speeding to work and in those gridlocked in traffic created by others trying to find new roads to travel without the use of the bridge. There is a unification in this kind of tragedy….everyone realizes how much we have in common, rather than how different we are.The frivolous gets stripped away and we are left standing in our simplest forms….human beings who need each other for help, for healing, for hope.

Over the next days we will continue to watch and wait in some kind of solidarity with those families who have no answers.we hope, for their sake, it will not stretch into weeks or longer.  Our prayers will continue to surround them and hold them in our humble, human ways. We will watch as divers and engineers, firefighters and police officers do their difficult work…..work most of us could never imagine doing. We will listen as people try to place blame and second guess what might have been, what should have been. We will hear government officials make promises they hope they can keep.

But each morning as we leave for work, for school, for a long awaited vacation, for the weekly drive ‘up north’ to the cabin, we will whisper the words Anne Lamott  reports her church says to each person who goes on a trip: "Traveling mercies: love the journey, God is with you, come home safe and sound."

May it be so for you and for those you love. May it be so for all those we never meet.

Traveling mercies…..