It seemed to continue on forever. Ascending each hill only opened up another valley filled with tarp and plastic sack “houses”. Each sight begged the question, “What is it like to lose, to be among the permanently wounded, the hopelessly defeated?” The people there told us that they left Myanmar because they were being tortured, one of the men, telling a story I won’t repeat here, propped himself up with his arms. The empty space where is right leg should have been gave him the look of half a man. I asked another man, Omar, to tell me his life story, where he came from. Omar told me he didn’t know, he couldn’t remember; there was no beginning, nothing to which he could connect his later life – and how does one relate a life without a seed, a source, a commencement?

Walking further into the camps the word “why” came to mind, and has stuck with me this whole week, I suppose memory can be tenacious. But at the same time this, along with many other things, has driven me to my knees, and I’m thankful for that. Victor Hugo said, “There are thoughts which are prayers. There are moments when, whatever the posture of the body, the soul is on its knees.” In a different situation about a month ago I asked,

“What does love do?”

I suppose it mourns, endures, and doesn’t close its eyes. Love gets its feet dirty in a lonely garden and its hands bloody on a cross. Love doesn’t sleep sometimes, while at other times it gives rest when nothing else can. It longs for someone to be fed as much as you long to be fed, clothed as you are clothed, sheltered as you are sheltered.

So what does this mean? It means that when I read stories about 60 somali refugees being killed on the border of Ethiopia I will see the body of Omar, dead, and dead and dead again. Or if I read of 5,000 refugees granted status in the States I will see Omar’s smiling face leaving his camp for a new home. A face grants permanence to statistics and desperation to prayer. This is a strong theme in Jewish writing. In the Talmud it says that to kill one person it is like killing the entire human race, and to save one person is like saving all humanity.

The preciousness of one soul. oh God, teach us to see things in the light of eternity.

In other news, i leave tommarrow. crazy. i can hardly believe it. I'm excited and sad and content all at once. It has been such a gift to spend six weeks here. I read this in Nouwen's Genesee Diary yesterday and it sums up how I am doing, "Calmness, repose, even-mindedness, restful joy, gentleness: these are the feelings that describe best my present life. No great hostilities or dissapointments, no great anxieties about leaving or fear about returning home. Nothing of that. It is a grace filled time and God is close."

There is nothing like knowing that God's hand does not leave us, in spite of what we see, wrestle through, question, fail at, or triumph in. He is sufficient, and He is all we have.