When the Ceiling Comes Down

I remember the day in 1989 when the Loma Prieta earthquake hit. I was working in Sunnyvale, close to where it was strongest. The ground moved like it was not solid.

The office was one large open room of cubicles under a high ceiling. The drop ceiling had not been put in well. What had looked small up there came down large. The light fixtures were metal boxes, about four feet by two. The bulbs popped and threw glass. Heavy air-register covers came down too. Dust filled the room. It went dark. Alarms started. The floor kept shaking.

They had trained us for earthquakes. What they had not said is that in a quake that strong you cannot walk. I wanted to run out of the building. I could not. The only cover I could reach was a small round table with one leg. I was sure the building was going to come down on me. I thought I was going to die there.

It felt long. Then the shaking stopped. The room was dark and wrecked. Things hung from the ceiling. Debris was on the floor. I went down the stairs still thinking the building might fall. Outside, the street looked almost normal.

All the work worries I had been carrying were gone. I drove home to my wife and daughter. Furniture was tipped over. Dishes were on the floor. They were unharmed. In the days after that, work had to be put back together. The family, and the ordinary shape of the days, mostly held.

Fear made the change feel like total loss. It was not total. Some things had come down. Some things were still standing. I could not tell the difference while I was under that table.

In Luke chapter 21, in the story of Jesus speaking about the temple, people are admiring the building. It looked permanent. The stones and the gifts in it looked like a world that would stay. Jesus told them a time would come when not one stone would be left on another. In the year 70 the Romans destroyed that temple. For the people who lived through it, the temple had held worship, sacrifice, and the shape of their life. When it fell, it felt like the whole world had fallen.

Jesus did not pretend the loss was small. He also told his followers to keep going. He said that by perseverance they would secure their lives. He was not handing them a map of the next ten years. He was telling them not to treat the ruined room as the whole building.

We all get our own version of that shaking. A diagnosis. A job that ends. A call you did not want. The future looks impossible to walk into. You want to know where this is going before you take the next step. You often cannot know that yet.

What helped me, after the quake, was getting home and seeing what had actually fallen and what had not. The ceiling in the office was a wreck. My wife and daughter were alive. Those two facts could sit in the same day.

If your world just heaved, you do not have to decide today that everything is over. Name what actually came down. Name what is still standing. Then do one next thing toward what is still alive. Drive home. Make the call. Sit with the person. You do not need a map of the whole aftermath on the first day.

This is a pastoral reflection, not clinical care and not a substitute for it. If you or someone you love is in immediate danger, call 988 or local emergency services.

Drawn from a homily first preached in 2025.