Before I ever understood anything about Pulitzers or Nobel Prizes, I read the slim book The Big Wave by Pearl S. Buck, who incidentally clocked in with both of those honors. So, it is no small thing when a writer of such caliber chooses to write for children, which, despite the heavy content, this book is written for. That being said, I think adults can always benefit from reading good children’s stories.

Kino, the son of a farmer, lives near a Japanese fishing village where his best friend Jiya works with his fisherman father. Tragedy visits when a tsunami wipes out the village even though The Old Gentleman who lives in a castle up the mountain offers refuge at the first signs of danger. Jiya alone, sent by his father, manages to get up the mountain in time and then watches with Kino as the terrible ocean wipes the beach clean.

Years later, Jiya decides to return to the beach, to help rebuild the village and to become a fisherman like his father. Kino is baffled with Jiya’s decision and The Old Gentleman derides those who have started the rebuilding. He warns them that he will never again offer refuge in his castle, what he claims is the only safe place.

Jiya answers him:

“Your castle is not safe either…If the earth shakes hard enough, your castle will crumble, too. There is no refuge for us who live on these islands. We are brave because we must be.”

In some ways, this pandemic has felt like The Big Wave – sweeping, arbitrary and devastating. Many people have died and our way of life has changed in somewhat drastic ways. It’s easy to feel like it will never be the same again. It’s easy to be afraid of The Big Wave, of The Next Wave.

In a podcast I recently listened to, Elizabeth Gilbert (of Eat, Pray, Love fame) talks with Jen Hatmaker about this feeling of shock that people have – like they’re suddenly out of control, when in fact they were never in control. As Liz puts it, “The world is doing what our world does. The world is just being itself…and it’s doing it perfectly. Because what the world does is change every second…And that’s what it’s always done.”

I take great comfort in those words, which to me paradoxically echo those in Ecclesiastes: “There is nothing new under the sun.” The world does what the world does – as it always has. We were never in control. But we can be brave because we must be.

And though it feels like things may never be the same, we won’t go backward. We aren’t meant for that. We are meant to go back to the beach and build again. And to treasure what we have, if only for this day.