August 5, 2002

Greetings from wide open spaces,

In the movie "Roxanne" there is a scene where Steve Martin buys a paper from a vending machine, screams at the awful headlines, then pays more money to put the paper back in the machine.  I've felt the same reaction these last couple of weeks, reigning in the urge to run down the street to give the newspaper back to the surly guy in the pick up truck who leaves it in our mailbox each day.  The stock market, West Nile virus, terrorist threats, kidnappings, wildfires, train wrecks, murders, middle east massacres, job losses, drive by shootings, car crashes, corporate corruption.  It's enough to make anyone surly.

Amid all that mayhem, there was the story of nine coal miners trapped in a water filled cave 240 feet underground.  When I read the story, my first thoughts were not about the safety of the miners.  My first thought was: "Man, am I glad that's not me."  I'm not particularly proud to share that with you, but perhaps you'll forgive my weakness.

I'd say I'm mildly claustrophobic, not to the point where I panic in elevators, or lose my cool with a pillow over my head.  But the thought of being trapped in a small space gives me a shiver, which I just felt again as I wrote these words.  Being trapped 240 feet underground, with 50 million gallons of water rushing by me, filling in around me, bores right in on my worst fears.

Once I blinked past my own selfish reaction, and read the details about the miner's predicament, I didn't feel optimistic.  I predicted to myself that in a few days we would have another headline about nine casualties in the hills of Pennsylvania. 

 I was pulling for them, though.  I read that as the mine was flooding, they warned another team of miners to get out, probably saving their lives.  The team on the surface, working around the clock to save the nine below, were tireless in their efforts.  Hundreds of people rallied around the hole in the earth, doing all that could be done to rescue the miners.  Then there was an eighteen hour delay, due to a broken drill bit, and I pictured another tragic story being written.

Three days after they were trapped, a cheer went up around the country, as the rescuers began pulling the miners from what many believed was their grave.  I was cheering too, relieved for their families, a little ashamed at how callously I had written my own bad news headlines for these men.

As the men were released from the hospital, and began telling their stories to the media, I was impressed by their composure.  Listening to them talk about writing farewell letters to their families, lashing themselves together so that all their bodies would be found, and all the while keeping each other warm, encouraging each other, praying together, helping each other survive.

One miner, Harry Mayhugh, told the press that the morning he was trapped he had left home too rushed to kiss his wife goodbye, which he said he had never failed to do before.  It was a poignant message, which is burned in my heart.

I wondered about the miner's lives, where we would find them five years from now.  Would they go back into the mines, just carry on as always?  How would cheating death change them?  What would they do with this second chance?

Walking around in my back yard this morning, drinking my coffee and thinking about what I wanted to write, I realized that we are given the same 'second chance' every day.  Every morning we get the chance to start off in a better direction, to make good on promises, to live up to our potential.  We don't have to escape from a hole in the ground, or from a burning building, or a crumpled car.  That's the good news.

Yes, many people are trapped in ways far less dramatic, and far more debilitating.  But most of us are not.  Some of us are trapped by habit, by insecurity, by inertia.  Others are trapped by a bad decision, or by the road not taken.  There is a way up and out.  Sometimes it starts with a prayer that someone will find you and rescue you.

The newspaper will still be filled with tragedy, delivered with surly efficiency by a man in rusty pick up truck.  The days I can't stand to read it I will stuff it in the recycling bin and go on.  But I am going to look first, for the headlines about people making the best of the good news, taking the 'second chance' and running with it. 

I'll call it a 'Miner Victory.'

Hope this finds you above ground,

David

Copyright (c) 2002 David Smith