Either the fires in California are an omen of the apocalypse, or humans just need a wake-up call.

Looking back on the tsunami in Asia, Hurricane Katrina and now these epically proportioned fires, I'm beginning to wonder if, in the words of R.E.M, it's the end of the world as we know it. Or maybe humans just need to be put in their place sometimes when we get to thinking we're in control. Just when we've got the latest gadget or made some progress in the war in terrorism, mother nature shakes a stern finger at us and knocks us back to size. Do we deserve to suffer? Do we deserve to lose our homes, our lives, or memories, our identities? Of course not. If my house was one of those charred structures I can't imagine how I would feel. I certainly wouldn't feel as though I'd asked for it. We must keep in mind that this isn't our planet; we merely live in it. Nature does not compromise for homes, computers, iphones or hamster cages. In the face of a raging fire it doesn't matter how rich we are, whether we're black or white, attractive or not; we'll all burn the same.

I saw this firsthand when I was in Mississippi after Katrina. I'll always remember the BMW that sat in the driveway of a house which had been destroyed. I know people who would have killed to drive a BMW, and here one was, with a rotting leather interior and rusted pipes, a useless hunk of metal. Had the water cared this car cost more than some of us make in a year?

The earth has been very kind to us, giving us oxygen, crops, letting us use her resources even though we fail to put them back where we left them. She sat passively while we pimpled her face with factories. We've waged war on her people, soiled her clothes and denied her presence. Maybe we need a disaster to put our lives in perspective.


I hope the fires stop soon, though. I hope the people are all right.