War and Suffering

Last night I watched an excellent movie "Water" by Deepa Mehta about Hindu widows in India, around the time Ghandi was making his mark on the world.
I highly recommend it, (even thought I cried buckets during it!) because I think it sets the stage for something important; and that is an understanding of Ghandi's rebellion.
All we hear about war in the news today is negative. Everyone seems to hate George W. Bush and no one wants their tax dollars to go to build up the Canadian Military instead of healthcare. Mention the word 'nuclear' and people are afraid; talk about violence and it is always a bad, bad thing.
While preparing for my interview I came across the question 'What is war?' and 'When should war be initiated?' Notice that it doesn't ask 'Should war ever be initiated?' Implicit in this question is an understanding that I think most people have, as much as they hate it, and that is that war is sometimes necessary.
The obvious example is World War II- six million Jews were slaughtered during the holocaust while North America dragged their heels and debated whether or not to jump in. In 1994 in Rwanda the Western world stood by while 600,000 Rwandans were butchered in less than a year. If you ask Lt. Gen Romeo Dallaire, who commanded the UN operation in Rwanda, what happened was a massive abdication of the responsibility of the world, and it was just because the Rwandans were black. World resources were tied up in Yugoslavia, because the people there are white, they are western, they are worth fighting for, they are worth saving.
The war in Afghanistan is easier to understand and easier to support because it was initiated by a painful attack on American soil- 9/11- that cut to the heart of North Americans (Canadians included) and provided the impetus to go to war in a country no one had ever been to.
But what about places where the suffering does not affect us, where its pervasive tendrils have not managed to crawl into our consciousness? What about Sudan, which exists as an ambiguous shape on the map of Africa, and where from for 20 years, we have seen pictures of starving orphans?
What about muslim countries where girls can't go to school, spousal abuse is normative and the value of a human life is negligible?
Ghandi was interesting in that he was one of the few men in history (besides Jesus!) who acheived revolution without violence, at least a nominal amount.
It is possible, I agree, but it will probably never happen again. (Go ahead, prove me wrong! Be warned that it will cost your life, though, which is not a very attractive option.)
It is unrealistic and impossible to expect that the world's problems will be solved by a change of heart, which is probably the only thing that would do it. In the meantime, people are suffering and dying around the world.
But that doesn't negate our responsibility to fight to be the salt and light of the world. We should fight for justice, fight for truth, fight for respect and equality and compassion and love.
We should not be afraid of violence- violence done to ourselves and violence done by ourselves. The scars of Rwanda and Sudan and Eastern Europe and Afghanistan and Iraq and Iran and all the places in the world where people suffer because they are helpless, and we are unwilling to step in,- these scars should remain ever in our hearts- to remind us that war is horrible, but that sometimes it serves for good. In fact, sometimes violence is the only way to stop violence. the harsh reality is, in North America we can protest war but only because we don't suffer much here. If we did live in a place where our humanity was constantly abused we might be more willing to pick up a gun and fight for peace.

Bottles of life

For over a year now I've been collecting pop bottles and cans, returning them for refund, and sending the money to Dr. Jan White in Mbale. It might not sound like a lot.... but the bottle project has blown well out of its proportions and I have several people who help with it, and each week, we return well over 1000 bottles. We've raised about $2000 which goes a long way in Mbale, and it's good for us to get into the habit of giving.
The only problem is I hate it now. I walk into the storage room at school and see mounds of bags piled up waiting to be taken to the depot, and I feel sick inside. I've even started throwing my own pop cans in the garbage. (gasp!)
Yesterday I prayed that there wouldn't be enough bottles to justify taking a load in to the depot, even though I knew full well there would be. When I peeked into the storage room I hated it so much I walked away and decided to phone a friend up and beg them to do it for me this week. I left and walked around campus with a friend for an hour, thoughts of pop cans niggling my mind.
An hour later I was sitting and waiting for chapel to start and I thought about those bottles. In the library there is a big mural made of people photos on the wall, and there is one that I stand and stare at for hours and every time it brings tears to my eyes and puts a fire in my heart.
It is of a little Sudanese boy, so emaciated you can see all his bones protruding, and he is crouched down with his head buried in his knees, hands covering his face, and there are clouds of flies hovering around him.
I remembered that photo. How could I sit here, not wanting to get a bit of sticky juice and rotten milk on my hands, when some precious child like that one was dying in Africa because he didn't have food or medical treatment? I told God I wanted to obey him in faith and I asked him to help me. And I went and loaded 600 bottles into my car and took them to the depot.
Yes, I spilled sticky juice inside my flipflops. And inside my car. And down inside my sleeves.
When I started unloading my car at the depot, one of the men who worked there was happy to see me and came over to talk. I pulled a bag out of the car and a glass bottle dropped out and smashed on the pavement. He crouched down and started cleaning it up for me and helping me unload. "How are you doing?" He asked in his funny indian accent. Do you really want to know? I thought, feeling quite depressed. I gave some non-descript answer.
He looked up at me and said, "Don't worry, God will help you because you are doing this for other people."
I felt like hugging him! How did he know? (Don't worry, I didn't hug him)
The people inside the depot were all smiles and they helped me sort bottles and asked me how I was doing and how was school. I thought about it later and realized that all these months I have been faithfully coming in there, hating the bottles but committed to loving God and having a smile on my face, I have been sowing seeds into their lives, and the lives of children in Africa like the little Sudanese boy, and it has all been worth it.

The life of a florist

On my list of 47 things to do before I die I wrote 'work in a florists shop'. Today I was wandering through Fort Langley and I was reminded of that. There is something about flowers that is so wonderful. The scent, the colour; it is as if against a backdrop of a suffering world and the gray monotony of a city in winter, someone forgot to tell flowers to be unhappy, and there they are! Unashamedly beautiful, delicate and vulnerable, transitory, yet possessing all the glory of the universe.
I think to be surrounded by flowers all day would be the most lovely vocation in the world. They bring rest to the soul and peace to the mind. Who can be angry while looking at the intricate leaf of a maidenhair fern, or the unfolding petals of a white rose, or the sunny exuberance of a bouquet of daisies?
Flowers say with their beauty, 'It's okay. Just let it go, drink in the beauty. Rest awhile, wait awhile, take a few extra moments to inhale the perfume and bask in the colour before moving on with the busyness of life'....
Each one is different, they are like fingerprints that can't be repeated and they are here today, gone tomorrow.
I stopped by IGA on my way home and discovered to my delight that their flowers were on sale. now there are yellow tulips above my sink, red ones drooping majestically out of cracked glass on my coffee table, clusters of orange roses above my bed with their heady scent filing the air.
Oh, glorious!

Zaza gets domesticated

Yesterday I finally got completely sick and tired of eating junk food and never packing lunch for school. I decided to do something about it, and because I'm the type of person who doesn't do things half-way, I decided to cook enough food last night to last for the whole month so every day I would have healthy, nutritious and delicious food to eat.
I started out by making a huge casserole dish of rice pudding, and while it was baking in the oven I used random leftovers and made a huge lasagna casserole. While that was baking in the oven I made a big bowl of vanilla pudding. Then I decided to make muffins. Halfway through I realized we had no eggs or chocolate chips, which the recipe called for.
Not to let things get me down, I googled egg substitutes and found I could put a mashed banana in my recipe in place of an egg. As for the chocolate chips, I found a bag of truffles someone had given me that had melted together, and I shaved off chocolate curls and threw them in the batter. By the time the muffins were baking I had had enough of cooking, so I quit for the night.

To my great disappointment, the muffins were flat. Completely, totally flat. The lasagna casserole was sunken in and looked kind of dry and burnt. The rice pudding looked puffy and burnt. Oh well, I thought to myself, at least they taste good, and boy are they nutritious! Tomorrow I will finally have good food to eat at school!
The only problem was, I slept in this morning and took too long in the shower, and as I wandered into the kitchen I looked out the window and there was my carpool sitting patiently in the driveway. I barely had time to throw a few things in my bag as I raced out the door.
So I'm back to square one again. No breakfast, no lunch, and to top things off, for some reason today I put on the most uncoordinated outfit I have ever worn in my entire life (no joke). To top that off, I only have 10 more minutes before I have to go to badminton class and prove that I don't just look uncoordinated, I am uncoordinated.
Man oh man. Maybe I should just stick to things I am good at.
On second thought, that wouldn't be any fun at all. And I really wouldn't have anything to eat at school. So maybe I should try again tonight. Maybe I should get a recipe. And maybe I should follow it. That's a novel idea!
Definately not one I have tried before.

Life is hard, then you die

That is a very funny thing my Dad used to say when I was little. We would complain about something and he would say "life is hard, then you die." Somehow it wasn't very comforting.
I was reminded of it today for a number of reasons. The first is that my calculus professor was talking about a difficult integration and he said we would just have to 'bite the bullet' and do it. That was another thing my Dad used to say.
I suppose biting the bullet comes from the Civil War or something like that when men would have their legs amputated without anaesthetic and be given a bullet to bite on or something like that. Aside from the lead poisoning issue, it conjures up images of really tough guys who had the mental fortitude to suffer in silence and come out smiling.
The other reason I was thinking about such macho sayings is that our furnace broke down. The other day it must have been about -2 out, which isn't much, but when there is no heat in the house it is pretty darn cold. We had no extra blankets and our firewood was frozen solid and in the morning I turned on the oven and opened it up just so I could thaw enough to wash dishes. Our laundry won't drybecause it is too cold, either, so I had to wear slightly damp pajamas last night (along with jogging pants, socks, two shirts, a sweater and two blankets).
But I am not complaining, oh no! In fact, right now I have an old shotgun shell of my Dad's and I am biting it. Moreover, I am counting my blessings. At least we have electricity! (Even if only half the appliances work). At least we have a car! (Even if it smells like rotten milk inside, but that is another story)
As for badminton, it is going fine. We did have a tournament the other day, and I did sit on the loser's bench for the entire class, but it is going a little better than before. I am keeping my eye on the birdie, and I wear a bright red dress to class. Every little bit helps, I guess.
That is probably a life lesson. Keep your eye on the birdie.... wear red dresses... and bite the bullet.
Have a good night!