When the reactor at Russia’s Chernobyl melted down about 20 years ago, we saw the potential horrors that our atomic age can cause. The radioactive gases released were all invisible, odorless, and undetectable to the human senses, but the fallout from this accident still took the lives of all those unfortunate enough been anywhere near the site. It killed both animals and people indiscriminately.

To this day, the people and animals who live in this area still suffer from the maladies of radiation poisoning and they will continue to suffer many years to come. The entire city of Chernobyl was abandoned and today is nothing but a ghost town. All of this tragedy was brought by something that was unseen, odorless and tasteless.

How we choose to affect our personal world and the people in our world can also have a Chernobyl like result. Our actions are all going to have either an immediate or a delayed effect whether we can see it with our own eyes or not. Like the hidden radiation, our actions and our words will permeate the world and affect our families and our neighborhood for many years to come. We all must remember this fact and spend a little time incorporating this knowledge into our spiritual reality, our actions and our words can have an impact as profound as nuclear fallout.

We are all approaching the time in our life that we are writing our legacy. Think about the effects of your actions and think about how you wish to be remembered by the generations yet to come.

Joel T Nowak MA, MSW