We have huge hearts.  When things go bad for other people, we care, we care deeply.  When others suffer, it’s our nature to help, to take action.  We’re a compassionate people with the willingness to stand up and be counted by helping in whatever way we can. 

When evildoers wreak horror, we stand united.  When winds destroy, waters flood and fires burn, we come together and we act.

While we stand united, the help we offer is different according to our own unique abilities.  First responders race to the scene providing aid to victims and helping to recover the salvageable.  Some first responders care for the injured, others work to recover infrastructure.  Still others work behind-the-scene whether by hugging and holding or by restoring and rebuilding.  Most recently, out of a need to be of help, people waited for hours in lines to donate blood.

In the case of mass murder, many among us courageously shield and care for their fellow beings, immediately giving of themselves to serve others.  In so doing, they foil the evil at hand.  As the victims are cared for, we then stop to look around and wonder how such an act is even possible.  Its enormity shakes us to our core; we are changed, forever changed.  As we come to know about such horrors, our humanness pulls us together. 

We are a deeply caring nation.  We stand united with victims of calamity.  We are bound by our humanity and our readiness to lend a hand, to support, to do something that can somehow make a difference.

It’s an investment of spirit.  In times of disaster, we are there for each other; we stand united.

Updated from my 2012 blog written at the time of another human calamity.