Thoughts on the rescue of 33 Chilean miners.

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Like so many others, I recently watched the unfolding of the gut wrenching process of extricating 33 Chilean miners from the very entrails of the earth where they became captive for 69 harrowing days after the section of the mine they were in caved in on them.

(What a real life claustrophobic, anxiety producing, fear inducing and oxygen depriving chapter to the Jules Verne fictional story, Journey to the Center of the Earth.) Unlike the Verne story, this was not just a work of fiction or science-fiction but a real live story with real live players.

As I watched the rescue process unfold, I learned of six brave men who risked their lives to go down over 2,000 feet through a very narrow shaft, in an even narrower capsule, to the bottom of the earth to help those 33 trapped miners on their journey back to earth and to life.

This real live chapter addition to the Jules Verne story, Journey to the Center of the Earth, is filled with all of the elements of dangerous, breathtaking moments, harrowing experiences and questions (are they breathing? How can they breathe? Are they surviving well? How can they survive? Are they losing their minds? How can they not lose their minds? Are they eating? What are they eating?) that anyone could possibly imagine which make up a good piece of fiction minus the encounter with the ghosts of miners who previously died in other cave-ins of the mine, as feared by one of the miners; nor does it feature an encounter with the prehistoric man eating creatures featured in the Verne story.

Written by Life and the very universe itself, this is a chapter in connectedness, bravery, courage, love, faith, and hope. It is a chapter in which, like the miners; the President of Chile and the Chilean people; I believe the Hand of God itself played a part providing the players and their audience with the incredible outcome so many thought would not be possible, but which so many of us watched from the comfort of our living rooms, or supersized television screens in waiting rooms or store windows throughout the globe unfold to a very happy denouement.

This story of Love, Faith and Hope is also the story of persistence and connectedness in putting together the disassembled parts of a large puzzle (not unlike like the shattered pieces of a horrifying nightmare one is trying to understand) into the unified and cohesive whole which set in motion the machinery that ultimately brought the miners to safety.

This story is one of the threads of connectedness between the miners, their families, their nation, their President, their Minister of Mines and all of those who were involved in the planning and eventual carrying out of the rescue operation of said 33 miners, it is also the story of their connectedness to a world which heard and heeded their plea for help and suspended, for a while the animosity and unfavorable light cast on illegal immigrants, here in America, whose physique is amazingly similar to that of those 33 Chilean miners in the cave in.

Much was made of the number 33 throughout the coverage of the unfolding of the story, from the suspenseful moments before the capsule was sent half way to its destination on a trial basis to make sure its descent would not cause another cave in, to the moment when the last miner was brought up to the surface. The television heads covering the story all referred to number 33 as if the number contained something special in it, as if it held a special code or a magical power. They said there were 33 miners who were rescued on 10/13/10. They added that the sum of 10+13+10 equaled the number 33. None of them, except for one host in a Spanish television station mentioned that, 33, signifies for Christians around the world, the age of Christ at his death.

Perhaps a miracle was really unfolding within the story from its very beginning.

Everyone marveled, including the miners themselves, that this cave in produced no wounded; no dead.

This is a story that makes any believer wonder if the Mercy of Christ was with each of the miners when the cave in occurred. And, wonder further if there was a purpose to the cave in, not only to bring about some change in the lives of miners and their families in general, or of their country and their President, but in the rest of the word as well?

As mentioned above, the physical appearance of all these miners closely resembles the physical appearance of those Hispanics who are currently being persecuted throughout the United States by the recent Arizona and other states' anti Immigration laws, and by the likes of politicians and right wingers who refer to immigrants from south of the border as the, "squat and drop" people who should, along with their babies be sent right back to South of the border. (All of this makes me wonder if, this morning when, at the end of Kerry Sanders' update on the miners, Chuck Todd said, "Good. That is where they all belong," Todd was really referring to the letters the miners said they left buried in the mine, a point he felt he needed to make clear after he made the statement or if he was, by some Freudian slip telling us how he really feels about the many Hispanics in this country whose physique so closely resembles that of the 33 miners. r

On the day of the rescue I was rendered speechless by all of the American television anchors and t.v. talk show heads who hailed all these 33 miners as heroes or men with an extraordinary will to live, praising the brotherhood they formed to keep themselves alive, yet ignoring the extraordinary resemblance the 33 miners hold to their persecuted Hispanic brothers in this very country which has now put the fear of God in them, made them society scumbags, shackling them in prison walls prior to their being deported back to their countries of origin.)

This is the story of a right-wing President with a heart who made no class distinction when called upon to save the lives of the 33 workers; a President that cared enough to do everything within his power to bring the miners to safety and to keep their families close by to the rescue efforts in what became known as Camp Hope (Campo Esperanza.) A President who said there must be not just one plan for the rescue of the men, but there must be a plan A, a plan B, and a Plan C. A President who placed the value of human life above class status, who did not shrug off the gravity of the situation in which the miners found themselves, or of the rescue efforts involved in bringing them back to safety and to life on the surface of the earth. This is a story too about the goodwill of a world in which sometimes goodwill goes hiding down to well below the surface of the earth but chose to extend helping hand this time when cries for help came knocking at its door.

This is a story about asking the world for help and receiving it. It is the story of having the wisdom to knock on the door of the NASA space agency--the agency credited with an incredible wealth of gathered information about rocks, rock formations and lunar landings. NASA opened a welcome mat and helped in the design of the capsule that brought the 33 miners to safety.

NASA helped design a capsule which would make the men not feel confined on their journey back up to the surface of the earth, though they were confined; a capsule with shock absorber wheels to cushion the journey of the capsule and the men in it as they rode back to the surface of the earth on a very jolting ride of bumps and turns through the uneven formation of rock along the way. It is the story of remarkable engineering design and the willingness to share, in the case of a Pennsylvania mine drilling machinery maker with a new untested drill who he thought the untested drill could penetrate the dense formation of rock blocking the exit of the 33 miners. It is the story of the gracious acceptance of the drill which became the bulldozer that opened up the escape hatch for the miners to back to surface light.

It is the story in a chapter of patience, wisdom, courage, persistence, faith, hope, love, camaraderie and brotherhood.

In this reassembling of shattered pieces back into a whole-unified-denouement, Act One belongs to the miners, who never gave up hope, never lost faith, never turned on each other, worked to keep themselves and each other alive and sane for seventeen long days at the expense of lots of personal sacrifices, working like a well oiled wheel to find an escape route out of the mine where they'd been buried alive which helped them to eventually find a way to communicate to those above ground that they were all alive but needed help to exit the mine.

Playing significant roles in their own and in each other's survival, one became the, "house doctor," whose job it was to keep them in as good a health as it was possible for him to do; another became the, "technician in charge of communication," another became the, "master of ceremonies, entertaining the group while guiding them into Elvis Presley sing-a-longs;" another became the, "fitness and exercise trainer," another still became, "a spiritual director," or "prayer leader," for the group. They were all lead by the wisdom, guidance and direction of their knowledgeable and, it seems, intuitive leader who helped them keep their sanity against all odds, their physical strength against very depriving conditions and circumstance, and their "chin up," at a time when many would have just given up. It is the story of a true leader who tended to the care of the men under his charge.

It is the story of men who could have easily given up in their quest to find the oxygen of life but who, by a struck of luck or the Grace of God persevered long enough to find a way out of the horrible nightmare they had been living.

This story is as much about a right-wing President with a heart who did not give up on helping the buried miners find a way out once he knew they were alive, as much as it is a story about the miners who organized themselves into a productive community of hope to keep themselves alive.

This is the story of a man, Sebastian Pineira, who valued the life of the men buried in a mine and of their grieving families over class status and employed the resources of his government to rescue the life of said miners.

This is the story of a man who recognized in the last miner to come out the makings of a true leader: a captain who did not abandon ship until every man in his charge had made it to the surface.

It is the story of two leaders who came face to face and saw themselves reflected in each other. It is the story of two leaders who put aside the class separating them and embraced the human nature connecting all mankind.

This is a story of Grace. Faith, and the number "33."

Authors Bio:
E.T.SIMON ... Keeping the Bio Real and Transparent ...
E. T. SIMON is more often like a transplanted palm tree from the land of Santiago de Cuba where she was born to a Cuban, Tulane University, lawyer educated father and, a Mississippi, mother, great-granddaughter of American Revolutionary War hero, Brigadier General Andrew Pickens who is credited with the victory against the British in the Battle of the Cowpens. Although at times, E.T. Simon is more like, the fruit of the pecan of her Mississippi grandparents pecan farm of long ago, or even like the Sycamore so firmly rooted in the Florida Peninsula. As such, the daughter of bi-cultural, bi-lingual parents, E.T. Simon navigated the bi-cultural ties, bi-lingual shores of her birth, while learning to appreciate Cuban and Southern cuisine and cultures, from a very early age.

At the age of 15, two years after her mother's death, she dreamt about running away from her home to join the , "Bohemians" of the 1950s in New York's Greenwich Village and become a writer. She did not. In 1961, at the age of 18 her father sent her across the pond to her mother's family in Mississippi in an effort to keep her from falling prey to Fidel Castro's repressive agents who were on her trail for her opposition to Fidel Castro.
Bumpy rides, or not, In 1976, E.T. Simon, after twelve years of part time studies, with in-between times-off for parenting, obtained her B.A. in English with a Major in Literature and a double minor in Psychology and Philosophy. In 1985 she obtained her Master's Degree in Counseling and in 1987 her License in Marriage and Family Therapy.
Her quest to pursue a MFA in Creative Writing was derailed when a stuffed shirt Chaucer Literature Professor graded her paper on The Prioress Tale short of the A she needed to establish her credentials in the MFA Creative Writing Program, even while receiving the support of the Academic Dean who told her with a certain urgency, "don't stop writing. You'll find a way."
Prior to pursuing her graduate studies in counseling, Ms. E.T. Simon joined a Creative Writing Group where she honed in on some of the art and craft of writing and had the pleasure of attending poetry readings by Tess Gallagher, Denise Levertov, Rutabaga Rose and others.
Following her 1985 graduation, Ms. E.T. Simon proceeded to work as a counselor/family therapist until 1998 when, following surgery, she became a near recluse and has remained a near recluse for the last twelve years or so.
It was during those years that she worked as a counselor/family therapist that Ms. E.T. Simon learned that grief is a powerful agent which often contributes to the derailing of families; that human hearts can bury grief for generations and generations with the grief popping up unexpectedly as a symptom anywhere, sometimes even in someone else further along in the generations.
Ms. E.T. Simon also learned that when careful unearthing of buried grief happens and a person is enabled to truly grieve the pain of a loss they have been holding on to for years, then rebalancing of the derailment takes place and true healing occurs.

Writing is a lifelong love of E.T. Simon's, and whether she kept her writings buried in dusty drawers, or shared them with university professors, writers' groups, editors, or published them, the writer's flame burns undying in her. The flame of truth also burns in her along with the need to stand up for the underdog, of which, today, she finds herself to be one. This blended well in her throughout her years of computer activism for peace and social justice.

E.T. Simon's articles have been published under the name of TERESA SIMON-NOBLE, the pen name of ELENA DUMAS; and at times, under the additional pen name of SKYAGUNSTA, or SKYAGUNSTA PICKENS, both of which are a direct reference to her great-great-grandfather Brigadier General Andrew Pickens who was named "Skyagunsta," by Native Americans who came to appreciate him as a man of conscience. Please also know that whether the articles have been signed with one name, or another; with a pen name, or another, the writings have always come straight from my heart, my perception, and my core values.
In other words, it has always been me, and only me, writing the articles.