Hebrew Bible and Christian Scriptures

rickshaw rides in kolkata as we walk to mother house

Clearly, there are elements of our time in Calcutta that defy words. At a later date, I plan on highlighting some of those elements in their own post. To give you an overview, however, is appropriate for this post.

Kolkata, as Calcutta is now called, is the capital of West Bengal. The commercial capital of East India, the metropolitan area has a population of around 15 million. During the time of the Raj, it served as the capital and was regarded as a second London of sorts. There were times I felt like I was in a British Victorian city – the same architecture, similar street names. But at the same time, it’s distinctly Indian. Life happening on the street and rickshaws being pulled amidst the rest of the culture. One of the best ways I can describe it is this: Imagine Times Square in the 80s and 90s – life happening everywhere and stepping over people to get into restaurants. That’s Kolkata. The slums, of course, are a different ballgame. 25% of the city’s 6 million live in slums. I walked through some of them today to get to the home I’m working at and they were every bit as bad as your imagination tells you they are. Children – naked or partially clothed – running everywhere, women doing laundry on the side of the road, men dealing glue to huff so people forget how hungry they are … these are all realities of life in a slum.

We spent our time living at the Fairlawn Hotel on Sudder Street, working at one of Mother’s houses and eating at the Blue Sky Cafe. We spent five days in this fascinating, bustling city and I loved it. I loved that we were there long enough to have a routine and long enough to know people in the neighborhood. I love that we bought water at the same place every morning and that we could walk to the coffee shop on Park Ave. I know several of my teammates who hated Kolkata and it’s frenzy and they were not sad to leave. I was. I feel unfinished with Kolkata – hoping to go back and spend more time collecting stories of natives and expats alike.

We’ll do our brief photo tour and then stay tuned for next time when we’ll talk about Missionaries of Charity, Mother Theresa and how those things have intersected in my story.

The view from our hotel gate. The white building contains the Blue Sky Cafe, easily Michael’s favorite eating establishment. Anywhere. We probably ate 70% of our meals in Kolkata here. Our waiter there was Chico and he is amazing and we miss him.

We stayed at a British hotel. Complete with tea time each afternoon. Here, Stroope proves to us that he did live in the U.K.

Laundry : one of those things that happens in the street and happens in droves when it rains.

The entrance to Mother House, which serves as the headquarters of the Missionaries of Charity. The room where Mother spent her life and last moments is preserved for posterity. It’s a surreal and holy experience

Mother’s tomb

We ended our time in Kolkata by spending about eight hours in the train station as we waited on our delayed train to Varanassi

Here’s what I learned in India: just about anything you say about Hinduism is true. You say it’s a religion? Someone will agree. You say it’s not and it’s a cultural system? Someone will agree. You say it’s entirely about reincarnation? Someone will agree. You say it’s entirely about caste? Well, you get the picture.

(this is a bit of a long post, so I’m putting in a break here for those who could not care less.)

We read several books and articles before we left, but if I said that I understood Hinduism, I’d be lying. In order for me to feel like I’ve really blogged about India, I clearly need to address this beast which is interwoven with every moment of life there, but I am not super qualified to be explanatory. Because I am a full service blogger, I googled around and found these sources for anyone looking for a deeper explanation.

• Hinduism Today is a magazine available online. The site includes editorials and other such insight, including their “What is Hinduism” PDF which seems well done.
• I feel like About.Com is always a fairly reliable place to start and it appears that their article on Hinduism is no exception.
• From a religious tolerance website out of Canada, this also is a decent explanation.

As far as I can tell from readings, conversations and attending a few worship services, Hinduism is largely about practice, devotion (bhakti) and the way one orders their lives more than it is about having a particular belief system. A person will often worship the god(s) worshipped by their family, perhaps praying to some others for special occasions. The god worshipped may also be attached to the physical location where one lives. So, remember, Key to Hinduism #1: How you behave is more important than who you believe in. Especially because who you believe in is allowed to change. Not kidding.

This is key because of the concept of Dharma. Dharma is above diety and above sin, a completely separate thing. The chief concern is respecting others and giving them the freedom to grow in their own space and time. While sin breaks relationship with god (yes, there is a concept of sin), dharma breaks relationship with the universe. It is FAR MORE IMPORTANT to respect the universe than to be right in a conversation.

To put it another way – most Hindus are completely comfortable with theological dissonance. If I believe in Jesus, they’re thrilled for me, but that doesn’t mean they need to. I can be right and they can be right and those aren’t mutually exclusive concepts. This idea begs the question of the contributions of culture to psychological development, but that’s a different conversation. So, Key to Hinduism #2: Being in community is more important than being right.

Once we get past these two points, it gets murky. Even within these two points, it gets murky. Because for as many books as I read that convinced me of the community point, I can’t really understand how caste doesn’t violate that. India is both deeply communal and highly individual and I’m not positive how to articulate that.

However, as one of our tour guides told us, Hinduism is impossible to understand and easy to practice. Most Hindus have never read the basic Scriptures or have any idea of how many gods there are in the pantheon (3.3 million, give or take). They’re unaware of dissonance and frustration. They simply live their lives in the rhythms of the faith passed down to them from their ancestors. If Grandma worshipped Shiva, likelihood is that you do as well. Beyond that point, most people I met don’t analyze their faith. This, of course, is a stark contrast to our own faith system.

There is clearly more to talk about: karma and caste being the two chief. I have myraids of questions about the origins of the pantheon and the general treatment of women under Hinduism. And as I stated above: you’ll meet people who deeply disagree with me about all of the above. I am simply reporting it as I understand it and reserve the right to amend this observations. However, in the midst of the questions, there are points of respect. One cannot help – especially when traveling through Varanassi or attending a worship service anywhere in the country – but be impressed by the level of devotion and the way spiritually has wrapped through their lives. I do not have the same story and have much to learn in that area from persons who follow this system.

Up next? Cramming thousands of years of history into a blog post. Get excited.

reflections in kerala

Our final stop in southern India was Cochin, located in the state of Kerala. It’s referred to as “God’s Own Country,” because it’s simply that beautiful. The language is Malayalam and it is the most non-Hindu state in India, with only 40% of the population claiming Hinduism. Our time there was one of Sabbath and tourism, spending one day doing each. On the Saturday of our time, we were given a Sabbath day. Some of us slept in, some of us journaled, some of us watched television. We did gather for a time in the morning to discuss the nature of ‘mission’ and its role in the Kingdom. It was an excellent conversation about roles and vision, grace and community. That night was also the night of the EPIC game of Telepictionary, which resulted in Andy’s new nickname.

Sunday was a definitive tourism day. We went to the oldest church in India, visited Vasco DeGama’s grave, helped some fisherman bring in their catch, toured old castles from the time of the Dutch and took in a cultural theater experience that evening. We also had the opportunity to visit Jewtown, which is literally an Orthodox Jewish community nestled in amongst Cochin. The synagogue there is the oldest among the British empire. It’s random and beautiful. (Side note: one of my Jewish friends and I were talking before I left and I told him I was going to Jewtown. He responded that it’s not an authentic Jewish community unless there are bagels and nagging mothers. I saw neither, so take that for what it’s worth.)

By the time we finished in Cochin, I was anxious to head north. The cultures in each Indian state are diverse (much like Phoenix and Atlanta have different cultures), but the divide between north and south is strong. There is significantly more Western influence down south – mostly due to the various East India Companies that settled and prospered there. Besides the British, no other country penetrated the north, and they did very little cultural change there.

So, onto the photo tour of our time in Cochin. Because of the cultural shifting point, this provides a great opportunity to pause. The next post will be a brief introduction to Hinduism, followed by a quick history of India which I’ve been meaning to type since before I left and then onto Jaipur.

This is Katie, CJ and Stroope playing in the Arabian Sea. We gathered on Saturday evening on the beach to watch the sunset.

Sunset on the Arabian Sea. My life is ridiculous.

See the above link for further explanation – but this is how they fish in Cochin. They let tourist come onto the platform and pull up the nets.

Gates of the synagogue. Pictures were not allowed inside, clearly.

Signage in the city

This is one of the more ridiculous stories from the trip. In Cochin at the resort we stayed at, we were offered the opportunity to do ayurvedic massages. Thinking this would be super relaxing, Mike, Kari and I signed up. Instead of a massage, it was an oil bath and instead of relaxing, it was traumatic. But, as they say, bad decisions make good stories!

I have no words to describe Kathakali. Theater, culture, awkward… all appropriate words. I’m going to let Wikipedia take this one.

scenery shot from the bus window

Our time in Hyderabad was spent as guests of our dear friends Sagar and Kaliani as they became our guide’s for the wedding of Sagar’s brother, Vijay. We kicked off the time with shopping for sarees, kurtas and shalwars (traditional Indian clothing items), had the chance to go to a dedication of an indigenous church, and got to enjoy all of the trappings of a wedding weekend (including purchasing bangles, which made the other girls beside themselves with joy). One tradition that we got to enjoy was the groom preparation ceremony. After a time of blessings offered and prayers given, the ceremony devolved into a festive party, celebrating Vijay and his new life. Of course, this is India, so celebrating involved a massive dance party (Bollywood style!) and the tradition of covering the groom with paint. And maybe also covering all the guests in paint.

The wedding itself was so much fun to be a part of. I was honored that we were invited and included the way we were. All told, the time in Hyderabad was one for the memory books – I got to wear a saree, got henna on my hands, took fancy photos with the team and got caught up in the joy that swirled all around me.

Another fantastic highlight of the trip was the afternoon we got to spend having tea and conversation in Sagar and Kaliani’s home. I had the privilege of knowing Sagar when he was at Truett and it was fantastic to see his life in India and how he has carved out life for himself since leaving. It was an honor to have them share their souls with us for that time.

Stay tuned for the next installment: iPhones and camels: juxtaposition in jaipur

Just to clarify. These signs were everywhere in Hyderabad.

Our first order of business was the purchase of appropriate clothing. While the guys quickly picked out their wedding kurtas, the girls got swept upstairs to begin with our daily wear – shalwar kameezes. We then headed downstairs to be fitted for our wedding sarees. Shout-out to the men, who waited paitently during that four-hour shopping process.

The saree store. INSANE.

Getting henna done for the wedding!

Vijay’s preparation ceremony – getting covered in curry paint

CJ and Katie cannot believe they have their faces covered.

Mal struggles to take photos with her face painted

With Michael in our wedding wear!

Kari and I in our sarees

Mal and I react to how ridiculous our lives are at that moment

Stroope and the girls in our wedding finest

Depending on who you ask, April-September in Northern Ireland is referred to as “The Marching Season,” “The Paramilitary Party Season,” or, by the most cynical of my friends, “The Silly Season.” The time surrounding July 12 is the height of sectarian activity, with the night before marked by bonfires in loyalist neighborhoods throughout the nation. “The July 12th Fortnight” is an unofficial holiday time – with many businesses on ‘vacation’ and families leave the country. For an explanation, check my blog entry from 2006. This photo was taken at the Annandale Embankment in East Belfast on July 11, 2006.

I woke up yesterday and knew immediately that it was July 11th. I don’t know how I still move in these emotional rhythms, but I do. I know that gatherings would be happening all day and long into the night, celebrating a reality that grieves me. I pride myself on being respectful of people and their opinions, beliefs and practices – but I will admit to having a hard time swallowing some of the traditions surrounding the 12th. It feels divisive and damaging and driven by hatred. I remember sitting on the hill and feeling the heat of the bonfire envelop me as I wondered how I would be celebrating this if I was a native.

Most of my friends shun the 12th, leaving the country for vacation – or at the very least, baracading themselves in their house on the night of the 11th and rolling their eyes at the activities of a minority of their fellow countrymen. Because it is a minority, I promise. But I had students who clung to these traditions for their identity. They understood themselves as part of this community and this is how this community carves itself out. What’s the line between valid expression and damaging division?

I’m not ashamed to say this piece of the culture grieves me. Celebration of difference as a ranking system grieves me anywhere, but even more in this country that has captured my soul. So, in light of all of that, I am sending thoughts and prayers of peace, wellness and calm to that wee isle today and I’d invite you to do the same.

chennai is located in the state of tamil nadu and the native tongue is tamil

I know I promised in the last post that I would be talking about temples, but that is actually going to wait for one more city. I’m splitting up time in Chennai with time in Mamallapuram. Sorry if this causes emotional distress to any of you.

What I remember about the travel process to Chennai is being completely exhuasted. We took off from Hong Kong around midnight, landing in Delhi for our layover at around 3am and then finally landing in Chennai shortly after 11am. I was so ready to be horizontal. This is also a pretty decent time to mention that my feet did not love India. I think the total blister count was around fifteen – including one that the team referred to as the ‘toe tumor’ because it was almost larger than the toe itself. (by the time we hit Hyderabad, they were much better.)

One of the statements made about India is that is an assault on your senses. This is completely true. India does not allow you to ignore it – the sounds, the smells, the odors, the masses. India crawls right up and demands to be dealt with. As we drove from the airport to the YWCA where we stayed that evening, our bus was silent save for the sounds of camera shutters. I’m sure some of it was jet lag, but I know some of it was that none of us were quite sure what to do and how to process everything we were seeing. I’m still figuring out how to describe India – but I will make this statement: life is lived outside. Constantly. Laundry, bathing, cooking, eating; life happens on the street. It’s an amazing juxtaposition.

We spent that day settling in (and I desperately tried to get the swelling in my feet to go down!) and attempting to rest. We only spent one night and a portion of a day in Chennai. The morning was spent in church at an Anglican Church of Scotland – complete with giant eagle podium – and then we did the tourist thing for a wee bit of the afternoon before loading a bus to drive to Mamallapuram. I have thoughts about the church… but those are for a later post. Here’s a quick photo summary of our hours in Chennai. After the quick photo tour – be sure to tune in tomorrow for the story of how I went to Mamallapuram and got promised marriage.

The little vehicle in the foreground is a auto-rickshaw – affectionately called a ‘tuk-tuk’ because of the noise they make as they drive. We took these frequently and they were my favorite mode of transport.

They had these signs all over the place and they always made me laugh. Always.

We thought this meant ‘no bugles.’ Instead, it meant ‘no horns.’ Considering, as Casey said, the horn business would be good to go into in India, that made more sense.

Just in case you were wondering, seeing cows everywhere never got old.

Housing happens wherever you can find it

The Apostle Thomas – of doubting fame – reportedly made his way to India shortly after the Day of Pentacost. There is a vibrant faith community still in India that traces itself back to Thomas – calling itself MaraThoma Christians. However, it is not just the MaraThoma who claims Thomas’ contact with India. Pictured above is his “tomb” – complete with creepy wax figure.

After a long flight from Los Angeles to Hong Kong, we landed in the city of four thousand neon signs. Our first stop was Starbucks (to demonstrate our devotion) and then we made our way to Sha Tin and the top of the hill to check in at our lodging, the Tao Fong Shan Buddhist-Christian Conversation Center. A charming retreat center with fantastic beds, shower pressure and free internet – we were thrilled. After quick showers, we made began what is affectionately known as “The Death March” by past teams. Stroope’s goal is to conquer jet lag and he does that by not allowing us to rest until after dinner. We walked down the hill (and looked like a living, breathing Kashi add) and walked to the ferry and took the ferry and went to the top of Victoria Hill and took pictures and and and… The last part of the death march was a walk to this noodle shop that Stroope claimed he read about in the New York Times. We got exceptionally lost and ended up eating possibly the worst meal of the trip. I *heart* paying for lame ramen. However, despite the lame ramen – I loved this day. I loved walking around Hong Kong! Walking around a city always makes me feel like I know it better – I would much rather meander through a city than ride in a big tourist bus. While I was only in HK for a few days, I want to go back. I loved the bustle and the chaos. It felt like London and yet completely different and that was fantastic.

The next day was a day full of conversations with American expats navigating life in Hong Kong. It was one of the first times of the trip where I really had to confront the fact that my faith paradigm is not typical for American Christianity. It may be to generic to say that I don’t fit in the faith paradigm of my home culture – so forgive me if that sounds crass – but I’m still figuring out to express my feeling of un-fitted-ness. I am not judging – honestly – there are just simply things taken for granted that I no longer believe to be complete truth. I know that’s a cryptic comment and one that needs to be unpacked with care. But this day was a bit of a preview of things to come, as I spent most of the trip wondering where the separation was between gospel and culture. Of course, to be fair, I’ve been questioning that boundary for a few years now.

One of the highlights of the trip (I think for all of us) was a meeting with Sam Say of Bolaven Coffee. Bolaven is the a sustainable cooperative of organic coffee growers in Laos. As Sam told us his story and the story of the farm, it became more and more clear that this was a special thing that I wanted to be a part of. Thus, I hereby encourage you to purchase this coffee and to support a farm based on excellence and equality.

After that conversation, we headed off to the airport to board our flight to India! Next up on the recaps: templetastic blessings for marriage: or, our time in chennai

This semester, as you know, I’m reading an obnoxious amount of books. Some are for papers as research and some are simply to read and review. I’ve now read two books by William Cavanaugh and truly and deeply enjoyed both. I post my review of the first one – Torture and Eucharist – here. To be fair, this is an excerpt of the review – but it covers the most pertinent points.

As a committed Catholic, Cavanaugh writes as a person who is not fearful of calling his beloved to be the best version of itself and speaks with the force and criticism of an insider of the Church. He spends much time making clear the point religion and state are not concepts which can be separated as easily as many Westerners would like it to be. By inventing religion, he claims, society removed the mess of war and violence in the sense society can now condemn instances of violence done in the name of “religion” as fanaticism, but continue to permit violence done in the name of the nation-state as necessary and desirable. Once this false separation has been incurred in people’s minds, torture is the next logical step. Cavanaugh points out that the question to be asked when discussing allegiance is regarding what people do with their bodies.

Torture may be considered some kind of perverse liturgy for in torture the body of the victim is the ritual site where the state’s power is manifested in its most awesome form. Torture is liturgy – or perhaps better said, “anti-liturgy” – because it involves bodies and bodily movements in an enacted drama which both makes real the power of the state and constitutes and act of worship of that mysterious power. It is essential to this ritual enactment that it not be done in public. (page 30)

Casting this in tension with the idea of public worship and the community, Cavanaugh feels that the actual Eucharist is the only true enemy of torture. To participate in torture is to participate in the false imagination of the nation-state, but to participate in Eucharist is participate in the true imagination of God’s realized Kingdom (the Church) and the future and permanent Kingdom which will only be realized in the eschaton. Since the torture performed by the nation-state is about submission and control and secrecy and pain, Cavanaugh points out the Eucharist and the community that forms around it is the greatest enemy of the nation-state. The Eucharistic community demands vulnerability and the sharing of pain and suffering. Simply by the acknowledgment of the Eucharist that states Christians share in the suffering of Christ and share in the sufferings of others, pain is not a thing to be done in secret or one which much be shouldered alone, they are defeating the very crux of the torture mechanism of the nation-state.

Clearly, these concepts of shared pain and functioning community as a combatant of torture are ones that we all must take seriously. It also raises many questions, especially since Cavanaugh’s Catholicism allows for beliefs regarding the Eucharist which many Protestants would find uncomfortable at best. However, if we are to take his thesis at face value, we must deeply examine if our Eucharistic community would be a combatant for torture. Are we a place that shares deeply in the pain of others and encourages transparency in grace? Are we safe places for people to unload their baggage and rest for a while? Are we prophetic voices into nation-states which seek to control our bodies and souls? As one looks throughout the OT, one can see the God of Israel is one concerned with community and justice and it is clear that many of those ideas were carried into the Church. However, both of those concepts often seem buried in Western faith expressions. The question that reverberated through my soul as I read this book was “How”? How can I be a voice against secrecy in an individualistic and privacy-obsessed society? How can I speak against the nation-state in productive ways?

Cavanaugh’s Torture and Eucharist is a must-read for anyone who seeks to engage the current world situation with the maxims of the faith.

Last week, in my attempt to watch all movies & documentaries generating Oscar buzz, I Netflixed a documentary called “The Cove”.  I quote IMDB for the synopsis:

In a sleepy lagoon off the coast of Japan lies a shocking secret that a few desperate men will stop at nothing to keep hidden from the world. In Taiji, Japan, former dolphin trainer Ric O’Barry has come to set things right after a long search for redemption. In the 1960s, it was O’Barry who captured and trained the 5 dolphins who played the title character in the international television sensation “Flipper.” One fateful day, a heartbroken Barry came to realize that these deeply sensitive, highly intelligent and self-aware creatures must never be subjected to human captivity again. This mission has brought him to Taiji, a town that appears to be devoted to the wonders and mysteries of the sleek, playful dolphins and whales that swim off their coast. But in a remote, glistening cove, surrounded by barbed wire and “Keep Out” signs, lies a dark reality. It is here, under cover of night, that the fishermen of Taiji, driven by a multi-billion dollar dolphin entertainment industry and an underhanded market for mercury-tainted dolphin meat, engage in an unseen hunt. The nature of what they do is so chilling and the consequences are so dangerous to human health that they will go to great lengths to halt anyone from seeing it.

It was fascinating and infuriating and an exceptionally well done film. The word on the street is that it and Food, Inc are the two frontrunners and I wholeheartedly agree.

Besides the obvious ecological implications of the book and the ways in which it should mobilize the Church to action (which was one of my questions – are there any ecological movements among the Japaneese Church?) – I found some interesting questions that relate to a conversation we’ve been having in Cross-Cultural.

In their defense of why humanity should do everything possible to save these creatures and stop the injustice that is occurring, one of the experts lead the discussion towards signs of intelligence in the species. He makes the point that we measure intelligence by IQ tests and GPA and other scholastic aptitudes, but questions whether it would be more appropriate to judge intelligence in other species in terms of self-awareness. A dolphin, for instance, is fully capable of making many decisions for itself and there is even recorded studies of dolphins consciously choosing suicide over captivity.

One gentleman spoke of our history of human-dolphin relations and the inappropriate things that have been done. He used the example of teaching dolphins American Sign Language for communication. He called this “barbaric” and “a form of colonialism and ethnocentrism” since dolphins do not have hands and can’t communicate back. He suggested instead communication through sonar sound waves, which dolphins could also participate in and express their opinions and needs.

The way the dolphin specialists and others talked about these issues were shockingly similar to the ways that my friends and I (and many others in the Global Worldviews concentration) speak about colonialists and some missionaries of yore. Domination and assumptions of stupidity based on poor assumptions about language lead to decades and even centuries of subjugation and tyranny. Which got me thinking…

Lamin Sanneh, in his work Encountering the West: Christianity and the Global Cultural Process: The African Dimension, he makes the point that missions greatest gift to native persons of the continent was the insistence on mother tongue translation and use. By empowering the people to use their own language, the missionaries instilled in the people a deep sense of personhood and nationalism. He makes the claim that to use a persons’ mother tongue is to give them dignity and to recognize them as members and participants of the global community.

All of this lead me to wonder if there are whole realms of cross-cultural living that we are missing. Now, there are boundaries to this and I will be the first in line to say that we are not called to all learn to speak dolphin or whale or what have you. And maybe I’m crazy. But to demand an understanding of respect on behalf of those who work with those species doesn’t seem to be unreasonable. Maybe the role of the Church is to take a stand against captivity and to discourage members from supporting organizations like SeaWorld that make money almost exclusively off captivity. I don’t know.

I do know that if we are to understand Creation as a dynamic relationship between all living things, then our responsibility is not only to ourselves and our families, but to the entire created order. If we are to be responsible members of the Kingdom, then we are also to be responsible members of the ecosystem. To be attentive to this will require work, I know. It will require more adjustments of priorities. However, when I hear of the wholesale slaughter of millions of dolphins for the profit of humans and the possible collapse of an ecosystem – I am not sure we can afford to continue along with business as usual. We must mobilize the Church. We must mobilize ourselves.

I’ve been wanting to respond to Haiti in writing since it happened. I’ve wanted to respond to this travesty of humanity and to this hope. I have been avidly encouraging all persons to donate to Partners in Health; trusting that they have been in Haiti long before the cameras were and they’ll be there long after helping Haiti ceases to be trendy.

There’s been a lot of talk in the media and around kitchen tables and coffee shops that the culture of Haiti might have contributed to the devastation that grips the country. There’s been talk of blaming voodoo and talk of pointing fingers at the Haitian people. I find these comments to be horribly misguided, if well intentioned.

There are legitimate and traceable reasons for the routine and systematic tragedy of poverty in Haiti. Explained well in Nick Kristoff’s Op-Ed, so I won’t go into them again here. If you’re interested in further investigations into systemic poverty, Haitian culture or the understandings of disaster relief – I direct you to other sources.

After days of crafting responses and wondering what to say, it has come down to this – tragedy sucks.

Other than giving money and attempting to spread the word about healthy and productive responses – I have no response to this. How do we respond to the utter desolation of a city? How do we respond to people being pulled from rubble and families rent asunder? How do we respond?

As a member of the human race, I grieve the unnecessary and catastrophic destruction of life. I grieve children without parents and parents without children and communities that are irreparably destroyed. I grieve and I weep and I groan – because what words could I possibly have to react to this? I cannot help, I cannot solve, I cannot heal – and so I grieve. I raise my voice to the heavens and I wail that “this is not how it is supposed to be!”

After the groaning and grieving is over, however, I have to choose hope. I know many people feel paralyzed by problems and situations and trauma and they choose to let others handle it. I am simply not built that way – my response is always to have a response. So, in the midst of tragedy, I choose hope. I choose to hope that Haitians will rebuild their country and perhaps reverse some of the economic decisions their government has made. I choose to hope that humanity will not abandon this tiny nation and instead to empower the people of Haiti to create their own destiny. I choose to hope that life will and does triumph over death and that a new day is coming. I do and I must and I am choosing to hope.