Insight for your “Journey across the Sky”
A View from the Nest www.eagleviews.org

Whoever lives under the shelter of the Most High will remain in the shadow of the Almighty. I will say to the Lord, “{You are} my refuge and my fortress, my God in whom I trust.” He is the one who will rescue you from hunters’ traps and from deadly plagues. _{Psalms 91:1-3 (GW)}

’FX’ airs a program named ’Rescue Me’, a drama about life in a fictional New York City fire station. Each member has their own demons to deal with and the plot line includes the messed up lives of the players, who themselves, need to be rescued from the fires of temptation. Each actor’s shortcomings are ever present as this televised drama unfolds each week. ’Rescue Me’ cries volumes to the world as a testimony to people who give themselves to helping others, but are then unable to help themselves.

All of us at one time or another need to be rescued from the fires of life. Whether it is the need to be rescued from depression, drug addiction, harmful relationships, emotional distress, physical disease or suffering, poverty, homelessness, brokenness or any number of other things from which we need a helping hand. It is comforting to know that help is only a 911 call away.

Once the call comes in, the rescue personnel, although burdened by their own problems, rush to the aid of their fellow man. Reaching out a helping hand to others, many times, helps us forget, or perhaps get through, our own shortcomings. It is by doing for others that we are actually doing for ourselves. We can not reach out a helping hand to someone, without giving our own souls a lift as well. However, that feeling of accomplishment is only short lived, and once we are no longer needed to rescue someone else, we fall right back into the pit of hopelessness and despair, because there is no one to rescue us.

In the aftermath of hurricane Katrina many fingers were pointed as to whom should have done what, and why this, that, or the other thing was not done. Warnings were posted, the alarm had been sounded, weather forecasts showed, without question, the upcoming storm. Several days advance notice was given. The storm was coming. Still many refused to leave and would not heed the warnings until it was too late. Reports came in of people refusing to be rescued from their flooded homes by those who were sent to help them. Sad as it may appear, some preferred to stay in the mess they were in, rather than reach out to the helping hand sent to save them from their malaise.

Just like the television program, many people lead lives of quiet desperation, to quote Henry David Thoreau. It is in their own inabilities to deal with life and cope with problems, that they find relief, if ever so slight, in the rescuing of a fellow human being. By performing acts of bravery and rescue, one feels the joy and elation of being godlike to someone else, an angel of sorts, the bridge between life and death, hope or despair, rescue or disaster, all the while crying out on the inside- can’t anyone rescue me? Why is it that I seem to be the only one who cares enough to help someone else?

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