Vision

I got my World Vision magazine (it's a pdf document) in the mail today. What perfect timing. Everytime I read it, I end up blubbering like a baby as it always has stories of profound suffering met with profound mercy. This issue focused on the Beatitudes and featured people around the world who are living them out. People doing amazing things to show the love of God despite enormous hardship and suffering. And then, of course, there are the people who aren't featured in magazines, but are living the lives of saints. They'll never come to the attention of Rome. Never have their own feast day. But I'm so grateful that for every Dick Cheney, ever Donald Rumsfeld, every Saddam Hussein, every Abu Musab al-Zarqarwi, there is an Angie Diale, a Dehuel Perez, Punitha Victor, a Vales Kela, a Florence Lakor.

I keep thinking of this song by an evangelical singer named Rob Frazier who I liked when I was in high school. Listening to him again a year ago or so, I realized that most of his music sucked. But he had one song called "What Can One Person Do?" that I still love and I couldn't help but think of the chorus as I read through the magazine.

What can one person do/for a planet that's suffering and dying/that's what they say/
What can one person do?/ Well, there's me and there's you/ And there's a whole lot more of us
/And if we don't stop trying, it'll all add up.

My Sojo email newsletter today had an article about Ricardo Esquivia, founder of Justapaz, a Christian center for justice, peace, and nonviolent action in Columbia. He was facing arrest but because of the enormous response of peace activists around the world, he was spared. The article talked about the international civil society, something I remember being discussed at the Sabeel conference in Jerusalem this last April. The idea that throughout the world, there is a growing movement for an international society based on justice and mercy.

If we don't stop trying, it'll all add up.

In other good news, I'm still feeling good. Got my new orthotics for my feet on Monday, so I'm sore as my body adjusts. But I still have the energy to do my laundry and write and read for my dissertation proposal. And the timer just dinged, so I gotta go get my pumpkin bread out of the oven.