Eyes to See

Here I sit. I am supposed to be planning for homeschooling right now. A storm is blowing in again. The rain is pouring. I sit on a chair given to me by my friend's mother who has now passed on. I am at a table given to me by my mother who was given it by her parents. It is over one hundred years old. All around me I see my treasures. My plate wall, my book shelf from my great grandfather, the shelves in the kitchen made by my husband. I see my photo albums and the toys strewn all over the floor. The baby rolls around. He is tired but happy. He is humming a little to himself. His little spirit untouched by trauma and pain. And I think ~ what if there were bombs and gunfire in the distance. What if I had just a day to gather up some things in a back pack and gather up the children and we had to flee because if we didn't we would all be brutally killed. We have a van but we could only maybe fill up the tank once. Store shelves would empty. People with wild eyes trying to figure out what to do. It is pouring rain and has been for a couple days. The highways would be clogged. We could drive for a little while the gas would be gone and then we'd have to walk and walk and where would we go? We could only bring so much food. I try to imagine how this would be. The terror and horror.  All over the world this is happening. I think about the refugees who are just like you and I. When I used to think about the Middle East I had these hazy desert images in my head with woman covered form head to toe. For some reason it has seemed foreign, scary and far away. More and more I am waking up. These families who are running, running, running for their lives, losing all they have ever owned and worked so hard for; they could be you and I. It could be YOU! They are losing everything. Why is the world not opening their arms to them? Why is the world not taking them in? Why do we think that we have the option to say no! Why can we not see how much room we really have. So many people could open up just one room in their home. Think about how thankful you would be for this sanctuary if you were in this state. If you had managed to survive the journey with your family and someone opened up a room in their home for you. Can you imagine how your heart would feel in that moment? How have we been so privileged to be born here? But we have been. So what do we do with that? How can we fully appreciate all of this here?
I don't have answers or help or anything. I just wish there was a way I could take a family into my home and help them start anew. When I try to imagine living in a refugee camp, trying to cross to freedom by boat somewhere, trying to just survive one more day....the agony of it all fills me and I feel sick. I look at my baby and my children and my husband and my home and I feel ill that I have all this and so many millions have lost all. I don't understand how this all works. I don't understand why I have what I do and why so many are suffering. I am thankful, yes, but ignorant. I wish the world was different. I wish we had the capacity to look back into history and to remember the mistakes already made. We have gone through this already so many times! Yet we do not learn. Our selfish hearts look inward. Our selfish minds lie. We need eyes to see and ears to hear the cry of the suffering. It swirls around us everywhere.

http://mcccanada.ca/learn/what/relief/syria

http://worldreliefdupage.org/refugee-services

 http://www.worldvision.ca/give-a-gift/Pages/bordercrossing.aspx?mc=4310918