Thought for the day, 15 February 2023

You don't get to lay claim to big feelings when you're warm at home and the power's on. When there's food in the fridge, and you can account for the people you love. When the mysteries of climate and science direct the havoc, the misery, to someone else's address, not to yours.

But if we're not all in this together right now, I don't know when we'll ever be.

I keep thinking of the volunteer firefighter. His body was found today. He and his colleagues, in the middle of the night before last, had gone from door to door in Muriwai. They must hardly have been able to see a metre from their own faces. They banged on doors and they screamed, get out: get out now. One of the residents talked about it to the news, about what the man and his colleagues had done. Her voice was ragged. She was trying not to cry.

In the spaces between these catastrophic events, there will be time for a reckoning; a conversation about how we made this our bed, and if we have the courage, how we might no longer accept to lie in it. But these spaces are becoming shorter. Catastrophe will no more be scheduled than it can be wished away.

Comfort is hard to find. But I think of the firefighter in Muriwai. He knew, when he rose from his bed, when he joined his colleagues, what were the risks. And I have a well of gratitude, a depth of admiration, that there are still people like him, people prepared to do what he did.

If we're not all in this together, like he was, two nights ago, I don't know when we'll ever be.

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