Thus says the Lord:
“Keep justice, and do righteousness,
for soon my salvation will come,
and my righteousness be revealed.
Blessed is the man who does this,
and the son of man who holds it fast. Isaiah 56:1
Things in the little black Rabbit car got quiet all of a sudden. A nervous joke or two. What to say, what to say? I whispered, why was I whispering, to Zach the driver to tell the truth. But really that seemed like a lousy idea. We remembered another time when some middle schooler told the truth and the whole very tired and very unbathed van load of us had to spend three hours sitting on hard benches while seemingly hundreds of uniformed officials strode to and fro with dark and fearsome warnings of what could happen, of what should happen and what were we thinking of.
We slowed down, obediently following the multitude of signage past the row of neatly parked green and white trucks and pulled into and under the official shade. Eight or nine slightly-overweight but very polished tan people stood with their guns and badges and oddly enough flashlights, even in the broad daylight. One bent down, glanced at the faux-dozing carload, and told us to move along. Zach hesitated. Really? And looked puzzled. “Move along, move along,” and that was that. No one asked The Question. “Are you all U.S. citizens?
As we pulled back out into the relentless sun and headed down the mirage-glimmering highway I marveled at the range of purple mountains bristling along the southern horizon. Although I love cresote and its rainy scent and have waxed semi-eloquently about its waxy leaves and ancient roots to restless seventh graders, it is pretty flat-out bleak spreading across the cracked dirt in every direction sucking water away from everything else to dominate the landscape.
What level of despair would drive someone to attempt to cross this expanse on foot, balancing the weight of milk jugs of water with the need of milk jugs of water. What hunger, what unarticulated dreams, what fears would bring them to face this heat, these guns, and those stories?
My thoughts must have voiced a question, because Wali answered it. “My brothers and sister. When my brothers and sister were my age, they made this journey.” Something drove Wali’s siblings, before he was even born, to cross the Kandhil Mountains, filled with the so-named terrorist group PKK that has been fighting for a Kurdish homeland in south-eastern Turkey since 1984. To cross the hostile landscape of Turkey at night and in hidden spots. To cross parts of the Black Sea in small boats to avoid such border crossings. And make their way to Holland to work in the shadows of legality for years upon years, waiting for the all-important papers to surface from the almost but not-quite hope-stifling legal system.
This story shades and deepens the resolve of an eleven-year-old Alan Aziz Karim who vowed to escape as well, no matter what it took. Or takes. As I read through the stack of college essays filing on my desktop: “At one point I was working as a soccer referee, lab assistant at the college and night desk clerk at a hotel all at the same time while going to school full time.”
So what does this all mean?
It means that I am brokenhearted. But where do I go with that pain? And does it go deeply enough or is He going to take me further into His love for the world.
Show me, O Lord, my life’s end
and the number of my days;
let me know how fleeting is my life.
You have made my days a mere handbreadth;
the span of my years is as nothing before you.
Each man’s life is but a breath. Selah
Man is a mere phantom as he goes to and fro:
He bustles about, but only in vain;
he heaps up wealth, not knowing who will get it.
How LORD, how then shall I live? What does Keep justice and do righteousness look like for me? Today. And tomorrow? And is it enough to live five minutes at a time? Or are you calling me to stop bustling and step over the cliff.
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