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Good morning. During the recent days of heatwave, discussion amongst my fellow dog-walkers has returned frequently to memories of that gloriously hot summer of 1976. What I don’t tell them was that that was the summer I went in swimming in the sea with my older brother and sister, and nearly didn’t come back alive. The tide came in, shifted the sandbanks on which we had been playing, leaving a huge trench of deep water between us and the beach and camp site beyond. That was the day I learned to float on my back, kick my feet, and do a kind of backwards butterfly stroke. It wasn’t beautiful, but my tentative application of the few swimming lessons I had had, gave me enough trust in the water to  stay afloat, and strength and direction to draw near the shore, where an unknown stranger carried me home. 
In the midst of that sunny holiday and personal trauma, I never heard that on this day, 28 July, 1976, a huge earthquake in China killed between a quarter and half a million people. – and possibly more. No outsiders were allowed in to help. We can only guess how many died of the government’s fear of outsiders, pride and self-sufficiency. 
Amidst the traumatic events which may shake and destroy our world, it is possible to be held in love through all troubles. So we pray in words from the As the prophet Isaiah putsRemind us Lord, not to fear, for you have redeemed us When we pass through the waters, you are with us;Though the mountains be shaken and the hills be removed,yet your unfailing love for us will not be shakennor your covenant of peace removed,says the LORD, for you have compassion on us Amen.