Rescue And the glory, the glory of the Lord . . . • Adaptations from prophecies; "Messiah," by George Frideric Handel Unique? Too trivial; the word could describe laundry soap, a new phone gadget, a pizza recipe. Awesome? Maybe, but also trivialized in youthspeak. Stunning? That, too, but still somehow emotionally as contrived as dairy-made buttermilk. Neither Fox nor CNN could "spin" the true magic of the moment, when a world-class team converged on the bare rocky desert mountaintop near a city in northern Chile called Copiapó, and worked steadily against all odds for 69 days, to raise thirty-three Chilean miners from the dead, as it were, and brought "all flesh" to witness together an event that was, and remains in memory, awesome, unique, and stunning in its impact. As the world watched, breathless, emotional, exalted even, there came the birth from deep inside the earth of a group of men who might as well have emerged from three months in the whale's belly, and who came forth into a new age of the earth, beyond Permian, beyond Triassic, beyond Holocene, into . . . an age transformed by their miraculous release and not yet named, but definitely as Homo beyond mere Sapiens. For one glorious moment in time, we could put aside the messy rumors of wars, the killed, the collateral damages, the draw-down dates, well as illegal immigrant bashing, unemployment figures, don't ask-don't tell viciousness, and all the rest, and live just this one pure moment of humanity beyond the bounds of partisanship where the good, the true, the beautiful--the Glory of the Lord--was abundantly upon them all who labored with expert skill, efficiency, and focus, to bring the 33 men, plus five more who went into the hole to prepare them, back into the world of the living from a half-mile under the earth, where they spent the eternity beginning August 9 when their mine caved in around them, and the final 36 hours in mid-October when the lift began bringing them to the surface, one by one. Every one was saved, including the "sinner" who was greeted by his mistress while his wife waited at home. Humanity prevails. The operation was a combination of front-line technology, expert operators, and providence-guided execution of a plan with no margin for error that many thought had no chance, but indeed did. Standing by the operation throughout was Chilean president, Sebastiáe Piñeros, who at age 61 was a supportive, confidence-building presence, offering comfort to the waiting families, beaming congratulations and welcome to the miners as they emerged from the rescue capsule. I'm not directly familiar with the facts, but it was reported that advice from his staff suggested he not get involved in a rescue attempt for the miners, which they believed was a hopeless effort, the failure of which could hurt him politically. He made his own choice nevertheless to have the government lead the way. Bravo! for independent leadership under pressure. A former professor of economics at the University of Chile, Señor Presidente Piñeros, Ph.D., stood with his people around-the-clock during the final hours of the rescue, mature, confident, composed under pressure--a quality seldom seen in this country since . . . well, Franklin Roosevelt. Harry Truman. Dwight Eisenhower. You know. Grownups. And lest I not give due credit, there was American technology and skill involved in building the rescue capsule, and in manning the drilling operation which bored perfectly through 2,100 feet of rock to land directly on-target in the cavern where the miners waited. The commitment to rescue the Chilean miners, successful in every respect, ranks alongside the sentiment expressed by Sir Winston Churchill at the adoption of the Marshall Plan to rebuild Europe after the devastation of the Second World War--he called it "the most unselfish act by any great power in history." The miners will obviously take some time to completely "decompress" emotionally and mentally from their ordeal. We all wish them well, and cannot cease to marvel at how it all came to pass. Chi! Chi! Chi! Le! Le! Le! |