The Meaning of Morality

The sounds of the radio gradually intruded on my sleepy morning reverie. The station’s weather woman was reporting from Aceh, Indonesia. Turns out she’s a member of a volunteer relief effort, and they’ve responded to the call for tsunami-relief aid.

She was taking a moment from the work to report back to the station. Her voice had an unaccustomed tremble as she reported. She told of the smell bodies rotting in the rubble under the heat of an equatorial sun, bulldozers digging mass graves, ships perched precariously on the roofs of hotels.

Where she was, the wave went nearly five miles inland. Five miles.

I briefly thought to myself that I wanted to be there, helping those people, distributing aid, even digging the graves. Something, anything, to help.

The radio host asked her, “what can we do?” He echoed my sleepy thoughts, “do they need more help at the scene?”

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