It’s pretty hard to be safe. Last night my wife learned that even a simple thing like stepping down from a chair can be dangerous. She just lost her balance slightly as she stepped down from organizing the top shelf in a kitchen cupboard and then the extended dishwasher door took away her chance to recover and the top of her body was going one direction and her feet were in the same place. She knew the back of her head was on its way toward a kitchen cabinet. It didn’t take her any time to determine she didn’t want to hear the sound of a head hitting a cabinet. Her arm broke her fall and in the process also broke her right wrist.

The Oregon International Air Show at the Hillsboro Airport is billed as “a fun, save family event,” but on Sunday afternoon the owner and pilot of a private jet lost his life and a woman lost her home and everything in it. There was nothing predictable about what happened.

I was reminded again tonight on the news of the critical safety concerns of people in northern Israel and Lebanon—people running for shelters and people trying to get out of the country. The Middle East has always seemed like not a very safe place to live and it is getting worse. Kitchen chairs are quite safe compared to living in the land of retribution.