pulse of the world

There is a world of suffering outside of our American frame. From the civil war-ravaged port town of Batticaloa where children cannot walk to school for fear of land mines and gunfire, to the terrors of the Sudan/Chad border where hundreds of thousands flee the hunting grounds of the Janjaweed militias, to the blood-soaked poppy fields of southern Afghanistan, to the rubble of Beirut, stumbling peace efforts leave broken landscapes and dreams long forgotten. For the average American, these are names and places from other worlds and times, far away from the Sunday paper and cups of coffee on the way to work. But as we hover in our holding pattern in anticipation of what the Peace Corps will bring, Em and I are beginning to envision weathered faces and broken histories, echoes of children forever replaced by rattling gunfire. We are trying to read between the black and white of the news and get lost in the human stories of mothers and fathers and sons and daughters in foreign worlds, until we can weep over hungry children, and the shadow of fear felt ten thousand miles away can reach through our walls to cast its darkness into our comfortable American lives. And we are learning to pray, to meet with God and ask for our brother in Sudan, our sister in Afghanistan, our auntie in Sri Lanka, our dear neighbor in Beirut. And in that quiet and anguished place, we see faces and hopes for days with less shadow and more laughter and dancing, and we feel, at least for a fleeting moment, the true pulse of the world.